…keeps the doctor away…

Surges in the proliferation of health information and services online has sparked grave concerns for the future of health and wellbeing, both in an individual and societal sense; concerns including New Media as a source of heath (mis)information (Wyatt, Harris and Wathen 2008).

 

One of the major currents in this debate is that both power differentials and responsibility have shifted away from patriarchal and collective to patient/user and individual (These follow on from my blog about New Media Empowerment).

There is an endless supply of information now available to laypeople that once were only available to medical professionals. We as consumer/patients may research symptoms, treatment plans, medicinal and lifestyle, etc information as a means of educating ourselves (assuming we have the skills to discern between reliable and unreliable information) (Lewis 2006). This in turn has led to a change in the discourse of wellbeing responsibility. Societal attitudes are shifting towards individuals learning and correctly managing their lifestyles (Lewis 2006), as a means to prevent/minimise the risk of becoming ill and therefore avoiding the costly (time, financial, stress) process of treatment.

 

In many ways, this can be a positive thing – there is a chronic shortage of medical professionals, and if we are able to correctly self-diagnose, this relieves some of the burden on G.P.s… Remember the old adage: prevention is better than cure.

 

Lewis, T. 2006. “Seeking health information on the internet: lifestyle choice or bad attack of cyberchondria?” Media, Culture & Society 28 (4): 521-539.

Ryan, Peter. 2011. “Freedom and Responsibility,” Digimediastudent Blog, March 26 2011. Accessed April 8. https://digimediastudent.wordpress.com/2011/03/26/21/

Wyatt, S., Harris, R. and Wathen, N. 2008. “The Go-Betweens: Health, Technology and Info(r)mediation”. In Mediating Health Information: The Go-Betweens in a Changing Socio-Technical Landscap, edited by Sally Wyatt, Nadine Wathen and Roma Harris, 1-12. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.