Cyberchondria > When excessive internet searching stirs up health anxiety
The Feels Guide is a field guide to internet emotion — new feelings, moody machines, emotional design, and wherever, whenever, however emotion and technology mix and mingle.
Cyberchondria is a stigmatized label and a serious area of scientific study that describes the very real anxiety fueled by unhealthy doses of health (mis)information.
🔑 DEFINITION
Cyberchondria is a clinical phenomenon in which repeated internet searches for medical information result in excessive concerns about physical or mental health.
See also: Somatosensory amplification, virality, health anxiety, infodemic
📜 A BRIEF HISTORY
Cyberchondria was first used to describe “the excessive use of internet health sites to fuel health anxiety” by the BBC in 2001. But the idea has its roots in the work of cultural studies scholar Elaine Showalter who wrote about the internet as a new way to spread “pathogenic ideas” like Gulf War syndrome or myalgic encephalomyelitis (otherwise known as chronic fatigue syndrome) in her 1997 book, Hysteria.
Since the early 2000s, a steady stream of scientific research has examined cyberchondria in terms of depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, teens, seniors, and covid-19. Supplementing online health information with statistics elaborating on incidence and prevalence is a solution under discussion in the medical literature. Policy agencies have studied cyberchondria in terms of increases in outpatient appointments and medical tests.
In popular media, cyberchondria has been positioned as a temporary neurotic excess at best and hysteria at worst. Like hypochondria, extreme anxiety about health online or offline is stigmatized. Mental health professionals, in fact, have stopped using the term. Instead, hypochondria is known as illness anxiety disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5).
Likewise, the use of the term “cyberchondria” peaked pre-pandemic. It’s been on the decline in popular media since 2020, possibly because internet searching for health information became more prevalent when concerns about covid-19 were all-consuming and quarantine limited access to healthcare.
A compassionate approach to understanding mental and physical health conditions is typical of the post-pandemic internet with health professionals turning to TikTok and Instagram to counter misinformation and provide support.
🏁 TRIGGERS
A bout of cyberchondria can be triggered in a few different ways:
- A new symptom or set of symptoms
- A recent diagnosis
- Family history of a serious illness
- Past trauma
- Chronic unmanaged stress
- Generalized anxiety or other anxiety conditions
- Temporarily heightened awareness of bodily sensations
- Or sensorimotor OCD
Some people are more prone to worry than others, especially people who experience post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, borderline personality disorder, and other anxiety conditions.
💬 EXPRESSION
Online symptom checking is a reflex. Pew Internet Research reports that 80% of Americans have searched for health information online. Figures for Canada, Europe, and India are similar. And, after a medical diagnosis, the internet can be an excellent source of further information or emotional support. The quest for medical knowledge can go awry though, leading us to spiral into needless anxiety or become a devastating obsession.
There are two main ways that we express that feeling of cyberchondria. First, through internet searches. Using a search like Google for symptoms can quickly pop up other worrisome search terms by way of autocomplete. A search for “strange rash” suddenly reveals the anxieties of millions of others who have searched before you. Limit the search to images and you are beset with troubling pictures, medical and otherwise.
On YouTube, one search can gradually lead to progressively more and more extreme opinions and misinformation by way of recommended videos. On Instagram, TikTok, or other social media, a search for symptoms or conditions can pop you right into a filter bubble where you start to see related posts, whether personal accounts or professional advice, with increasing frequency.
💗 EXPERIENCE
Cyberchondria often strikes in moments of weakness, like a 3 am heart palpitations or noticing a strange bumpy rash on your shoulder, which can lead you to plumb the depths of internet rabbit holes in search of answers.
In the short term, this emotional behavior can make symptoms feel more acute. Or it can leave you jumpy, irritable, or make it difficult to relax.
The more persistent the anxiety becomes, the more normal functions can feel like ominous indicators of disease. Longer-term it can result in difficulty concentrating, emotional outbursts, or problems sleeping. It can also prompt people to new behaviors, like ordering expensive and unproven alternative medicines or asking for unnecessary screenings, that can adversely affect health.
💪 PRO TIP
Coping with cyberchondria requires self-compassion. It’s normal to search for information about your health and to feel a little anxious once in a while. But it’s important to make sure you don’t become overwhelmed by fear or fall into a state of despair.
The first step is to talk to a doctor about your symptoms. It’s possible to be anxious about health concerns and actually have valid health concerns. Online health information can help us know how to ask the right questions and develop a deeper understanding of conditions too. Experts say that if you have general symptoms, like fatigue or headache, it’s less likely you’ll be able to self-diagnose whereas a doctor will be better able to consider those factors.
The next step may be to talk to a mental health professional. If you are feeling more health-anxious than health-conscious, such as limiting activities due to fear of illness or spending more time ruminating about specific conditions, it may be time to get some help.
On your own, you can start with trusted sources like WebMD’s symptom checker, Mayo Clinic, or Healthline but know that algorithm-driven symptom checkers are still much less accurate than a physician’s diagnosis according to scientific studies. Recognizing your triggers, whether travel or crowds or middle-of-the-night worries, can reduce the effects too.
💡 BIG PICTURE
Cyberchondria is one of the many types of anxieties exacerbated by technology. Online-induced health anxiety is real and far-reaching. Effects can be dire, leading people to panic and seek unnecessary treatment or dismiss a diagnosis.
For most, the anxiety is milder. You feel a twinge and your mind races off to all the worst possible outcomes depending on how vulnerable you’re feeling at that moment.
For some, internet health information can reduce anxiety. People seeking support for a specific medical condition can find solace in online communities. Using the internet to learn more about a condition after being diagnosed can allay fears.
With medical care becoming more expensive or more difficult to access, and the doctor-patient relationship going from a trusted long-term commitment to a mechanized interaction of corporatized medical conglomerates, people are apt to fill in the gaps with readily available information online.
As we get better at identifying credible sources and platforms develop new ways to flag misinformation and contextualize health information with supplementary statistics and physician annotations, it’s likely that the internet will contribute less to the underlying anxiety about health that many people already feel.
🤔 LEARN MORE
- Go wayback to the first article about cyberchondria from The Independent in 2001
- Read about how mental health content creators are defining their own ethics in the Washington Post
- Do a deep dive into this meta study about cyberchondria and problematic internet use
- If you’re experiencing health anxiety, try out this cognitive behavioral therapy workbook from the Australian Centre for Clinical Interventions
That’s all the feels for this week!
xoxo
Pamela 💗
Want a preview of next week’s emotion? Subscribe to the Friday newsletter for that and more stories about tech and emotion.
The guide behind the guide
I’m Pamela Pavliscak, a tech emotionographer who studies emotion on the internet. I’m writing a book, All the Feels (Algonquin, 2024), about how technology is changing our emotional life — mostly for the better. I run an emotion tech consultancy called Subjective Labs and teach emotional design at the Pratt Institute in NYC. And I’m starting to share what I learn here and on Substack, Instagram, and Twitter.
