Do You Keep Searching For Your Symptoms Online And Stressing Out? You May Be a Cyberchondriac

You may have heard about the term “Hypochondriac”. It defines a person who is obsessed with thinking that they may be suffering or experiencing the symptoms of some disease or the other. The problem with such people is that they can actually manifest their own mental state into actual experiences of invisible pain. Today however we are in the age of the internet and many a hypochondriac may have evolved to what psychologists are now referring to as the condition of Cyberchondria.

1The trend of diagnosing disease from Google is more than ever

2What is Cyberchondria

In cyberchondria, it is different. People afflicted with the condition do not possess that rational thinking or are able to manage and process the information they read online as just information to help them understand the disease better. They start thinking and getting affected differently. They start to think that the search itself is a diagnosis and affirmation of the disease. This soon progresses to the habit of constant Googling of symptoms and associating their own experiences with what they read.

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3People are replacing doctors with Google

This is now growing to be a real disorder of the 21st century where people have replaced doctors with Google and now diagnosing themselves. The dangers of such a practice is not in the Googling itself but the stress and possible trauma that may arise from the lack of understanding medical terminology and process to believe that every possible symptom could be that of some dreaded disease. Many will resort to medicating themselves in such a scenario.

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4Anxiety reflected as cyberchondria

Today there are doctors having to deal with patients who claim to be suffering from cancer or brain tumors when it could just be a simple headache. The main reason for this is the harmful effects of self-diagnosis that is made after researching online about the possible diseases, disorders and medical conditions.

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