Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Word of the Day: Cyberchondria

Today's New York Times says this: "the term 'cyberchondria' emerged in 2000 to refer to the practice of leaping to dire conclusions while researching health matters online."

Microsoft recently released a survey that "suggests that self-diagnosis by search engine frequently leads Web searchers to conclude the worst about what ails them."

Apparently 2% of all searches are health-related; and results are as likely to show something terrible as benign. I think 100% of my searches show something dire.

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