Don't Let Dr Google Scare You
Googling your symptoms can have serious side effects
All of us have done it: We feel a little ill, we get our laptop, we google our symptoms, and we find out we have only three days left to live. Google gives us an enormous amount of medical information in an instant. This has great advantages, including an increased awareness of what causes killer diseases and what makes a healthy lifestyle. But it also comes with some downsides: Unreliable sources, unscientific rumors, and health myths to name a few. There may be one other major cost too: Self-diagnosis with Google could be driving up people’s anxiety.
Google: The Doomsayer Doctor
A recent study tested how people react to googling their symptoms. The researchers brought volunteers into the lab and recorded their emotional states before starting a hyperventilation task. They asked people to breathe deeply and rapidly—around 20 breaths per minute—until the carbon dioxide in their body was low enough to temporarily cause symptoms such as a high heart rate and dizziness. After those symptoms emerged, they told some people to spend five minutes googling their symptoms, while telling others to sit and wait for five minutes. Then, for a second time, they measured everyone’s emotional states to see how their feelings changed.
While googling, people found search results suggesting that their symptoms could be linked to serious health problems such as heart attacks and strokes. So unsurprisingly, when compared to the people who didn’t investigate their hyperventilation symptoms, the Google users were more likely to report being scared about having a serious illness and more likely to want to see a doctor. The way they rated their symptoms was no different to people who didn’t use Google; it was only their perception and reaction to those symptoms that changed.
Interestingly, a health app with a self-diagnosis feature was better than Google at diagnosing hyperventilation, but it was just as bad at creating panic. When we’re experiencing mild symptoms, too much attention and self-diagnosis can actually leave us worse off. Rather than quickly recovering and getting back to normal life, we dwell on the horrible possibilities, which can amplify anxiety and exacerbate mental health problems. Of course, that doesn’t mean we should ignore our medical concerns, but it does mean that our obsession with Google may be doing more harm than good.
What can we do about health anxiety?
The internet has many great resources for learning about health, but unrealistic self-diagnosis can distort our perceptions about how we’re feeling and what our symptoms mean. Here are three suggestions for trying to keep a level head:
Wait a day or two before the googling begins: Has your doctor ever ended a visit with: “Let’s just see how you feel tomorrow, but come back to see me if your symptoms get worse”? My doctors certainly have, and I always take it as a sign that I may have started worrying a little too early. When you experience mild changes in your body, it may not be such a great idea to jump straight on Google to investigate—give it at least a day or two before you grow concerned. When you obsessively self-inspect, perspective can fly out of the window, and normal discomforts begin to look like something to worry about.
Try video consultations: When you feel the need to speak to a medical expert, nothing should stop you. Fortunately, some people now have the option of a video consultation with a doctor rather than a physical consultation. This reduces many of the costs and risks of an unnecessary visit to a medical center, so it can be a great first option when you’re slightly worried about symptoms that you’re experiencing but not sure that it’s anything urgent. If you have this service available, it may be a far better option than Google!
Avoid attention and memory biases: We’re generally incapable of processing information neutrally. Instead, we see everything through an emotional lens. We are always likely to focus on and remember the most dramatic information we come across (which is why we spend so much time worrying about extremely rare events like plane crashes and terrorist attacks). If you do begin a symptom-fishing expedition on Google, keep this bias in mind, and try to keep a level head when it suggests you may be suffering from some of the worst diseases on Earth.
Apparently, everything causes and cures cancer
Google isn’t the only Doomsayer Doctor in town. Some journalists also have an amazing ability to find terror in everyday objects. One website has pulled together all of the claims ever made about causes and cures for cancer from the British tabloid newspaper The Daily Mail. It’s certainly not the only newspaper guilty of this kind of sensationalism, but it does provide some irresistible examples.
As the website shows, The Daily Mail has at some point claimed that everything from melons to marriage prevents cancer, and everything from salmon to sandals causes cancer. Surprisingly, some miracle substances like coffee are even listed as both a cancer-causing and a cancer-curing agent! The list really is endless, and contains links to the original newspaper articles, just in case you want to check out the stories for yourself.
If nothing else, these cancer stories are a great example of our emotional overreactions to normal events, and our general attraction to drama. When we spend too much time diagnosing our own diseases, all of these biases can get the better of us.
That final quote
Final words today go to the author John Jay Chapman (1862-1933):
“People get so in the habit of worry that if you save them from drowning and put them on a bank to dry in the sun with hot chocolate and muffins they wonder whether they are not taking cold”
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Dr Erman Misirlisoy, PhD
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