As time progresses, more and more people are switching over to online health apps and websites to help them with diagnosis of illness and treatments for illnesses. Although this may sound as a great idea, there are many repercussions that could come with this. What people see in these online health apps and websites is the alternative to going to a doctor and a way to get faster results than making an appointment to a doctor and waiting. Everyone hates waiting for their turn and always want to speed up the process of receiving results. What many people fail to see is the negatives of all these online health apps and websites.
No matter how much these health apps and websites tell someone that all of their information about illnesses is correct and up to date, there is no way of proving that. Take SocialMD for example. They claim that all the information that they provide to customers/visitors is correct, however, on many occasions there were people that complained that the site provided them with false diagnosis of illnesses and caused them to stress and overthink about their situation. Nobody wants to be put in that situation where they think they have a cold and when they research their symptoms they get results of cancer. Wouldn’t it be easier just to go to a doctor and save yourself all of the stress? Doctors goes through college and a lot of training in order to be there to help someone, yet many people still choose to trust the Internet over doctors. Sure you will save some money by using the Internet, but you’ll never be sure if the diagnosis you get off the Internet will be the same a doctor’s.
Keeping your information private and secure is also a main reason why doctors are more trustworthy than the online health apps and websites. You will always know where your doctor stores your information, on the other hand, the problem with the health apps and websites is that there is no way of knowing how secure your information is. The apps and websites can claim that your information will never be seen by anyone, but that can’t be proven. Hackers can easily access this information and these apps and websites will never know because hackers do not leave their footprints behind. If one hacker can access your information, then other hackers can to. This was an issue with SocialMD as many people were claiming that they were getting emails from random health websites and apps about using them for their health needs. Once an investigation was launched it was found that SocialMD was hacked numerous times and everyone’s information was exposed to the hackers. Even while this was happening, SocialMD was telling their customers/visitors that there is no way that anyone can access their private information. This should show people how unsafe these online health apps and websites are as the things they claim are proven to be false.
Real Life Situations
- Lucie who is in 10th grade posted something on her spam Instagram that she didn’t want anyone to see. A girl from her class came across this post and sent it to many people who would end up saying hurtful things about Lucie which hurt her both physically and mentally.
- Ben Pamment lost 151lbs because of using social media as a way to help him not give up. Ben was 312lbs and gained depression and anxiety. He started off by setting small goals for himself to achieve for weight loss. As he started to lose weight, he would post pictures on social media. He said that the amount of support he got from people motivated him to work even harder to lose weight.
- Brooke became addicted to social media at the age of 12 and from there her addiction became worse. She would later begin to consume alcohol and drugs due to the influence of social media. She soon became depressed and full of anxiety due to all of this. She would stay on her phone until 4:30 am.
- Isabel Meijering got into ASMR after experiencing for herself how much it helped her get rid of anxiety and helped her fall asleep.