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DCL
You lead a normal, healthy lifestyle. You eat well, you exercise a couple times a week, and you don't smoke or drink heavily. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, you start feeling congested and nauseous. You cough, get a headache. Could just be the common cold, you figure, probably is. Better check online to be sure. A few Google searches later, each query typed faster and more sloppily than the last, and...
It's all over. You've decided you most certainly have the bubonic plague, and must choose whether to rush to the hospital and risk starting a nationwide epidemic or remaining nobly in your apartment to die alone while listening to your favorite sad song on repeat and staring stoically out the window.
You, my hypothetical friend, have just fallen victim to Cyberchondria, an Internet-accelerated hypochondria where you work yourself into a frenzy after reading online about diseases that kind of, sort of sound like they produce the same symptoms you're suffering.
Or as the London Times put, Cyberchondria is "the deluded belief you suffer from all the diseases featured on the Internet."
That's a little harsh, London Times. I mean, we've all done this at one point or another: Hm, what's this little bump on the back of my neck here, Good Sir Internet? Malignant Tumor!?! And this cramp in my abdomen? Stomach Cancer!
And yet, we're not truly deluded. We're just looking for answers, and it's easy to get alarmed by a doom-saying description that seems to be just a little too accurate. But realize that most of the horrifying diseases you dig up online are extremely rare, and don't put too much credence in Internet diagnoses—you need to see a real doctor if you think there's something wrong. But it makes no sense to get worked up over health sites online every time you get lightheaded—don't let an inanimate screen diagnose you with cancer.
You do your best to live green and eat healthy, remember? And an important part of having a healthy lifestyle is knowing you lead one. And yes, there are some horrible, debilitating, even fatal diseases out there.
But you probably don't have them.
