Internet addiction is a new addiction taking its toll on people’s mental health and wellbeing. Google searches are the new fashion as every information is available at the click of a button. But when these web searches are about our health, they can prove to be hazardous. Too much dependance on the internet and the visual world may lead people into fostering false beliefs and perceptions and sway them away from reality.
A distraught mother called me up and said that her 18 year old son was acting very selfish and self centered. He only thinks and talks about himself and his problems. It seems that he has no empathy and does not care about his family at all, she complained. She further told me that she was worried as she had web searched and read about narcissism. The details shared online about narcissism matched with her son’s behaviour. She asked me if her son was a narcissist.
The parents of a 20 year old brought him to me for counseling as he was distraught and always talking of supernatural powers and life after death. The young boy sounded and looked confused as he told me that he had read many online stories of supernatural powers and life after death. He liked such stories and was making videos about death and life after death. His parents complained that since then his behaviour had changed and he was not paying attention to his studies.
Many people have become very dependent on Google as their source of information today. They rely completely on all the information given there and this is the root cause of many problems doctors are facing with the patients today. Our search for a holiday destination or an online shopping spree or for a movie, a recipe, a contact or an address, it’s all just one click away. And we have to thank technology for this boon but sometimes it’s a bane too. When we try to find a cure or a diagnosis for our mental or physical ailments, it’s hazardous and may prove to be disastrous.
When it comes to our health related issues we should take help of qualified doctors who will treat us according to our symptoms. Online knowledge is half-baked knowledge when dealing with human emotions and ailments and many people think they are sick just by consuming this half-baked knowledge which they are also not qualified to understand. This is the cause of a great number of mental illnesses in people today. People begin to imagine their illness or try to diagnose it using online information. This leads to more anxiety and stress and complicates their life further.
It’s a common complaint by many doctors that it becomes very difficult for them to convince some of the patients about their treatment or diagnosis when they come with a preconceived information overload from 'Dr Google' about their condition. In fact many have already diagnosed themselves and come to the doctors for endorsement. Like the two examples I have cited above. In the first case the mother thought her son was a narcissist because she had read about this on the internet and diagnosed her son. Actually during counselling he told me that he was preoccupied with his career issues and he was going through his own stresses and strains and was irritated that his family, especially his mother did not understand him. In the second case the young boy was always on the internet and too much of online stories and videos had messed up his thinking and cognitions. He was confused between the real and the virtual world. The parents were not able to understand this.
Online information may or may not be authentic. Doctors spend years mastering their profession, sometimes spend 10 or more years studying medicine, depending on the level of their degrees. A doctor has read umpteen medical books, gained complete knowledge of the human mind and body, taken rigorous training from senior teachers in dealing with patients and suffering. He deals with the patients and their symptoms first hand. However patients don’t read medical textbooks but just use online searches and try to become doctors. Treatment can never be generalised. What works for one patient may not work for another and different patients may respond differently to the treatment or manifest symptoms in different ways or respond differently to medicines. Even with the recent advances in artificial intelligence , my advice is to trust your doctors and try to build a good relationship with them. No technology or machines can replace the professional human touch which has empathy, knowledge and kindness.
An online search can never come anywhere near to a doctor's examination, diagnosis or treatment. Many times I have to remind my computer or IT engineer patients or my chartered accountant, lawyer or journalist patients that no matter how much online reading I do I can never become a lawyer or a software engineer. They agree to this fact whole heartedly but still many of them cannot resist the urge to search online about their illness and apply this to themself. It’s important that people make use of technology to grow and gain information in their own fields instead of trespassing into other arenas of which they have little knowledge.
Here I would like to emphasise the fact that reading is very important and a very good habit but the quality and authenticity of the reading you do matters a lot.
We have to be careful to know how much of online information is authentic and reliable. The internet can sometimes be a very dangerous source of information when it comes to mental or physical health. Sometimes when we tell our patients to read about some issues or learn practical tips from videos like breathing exercise techniques or relaxation techniques we also tell them clearly and assertively to read from proper authentic and right sources.
Sadly, today we do not have any ‘policing body’ to check the facts of the information on the internet .We have to be very careful of what we read and its sources and not apply it on ourselves if it is a health related issue. No one but your doctor can help you in that as he understands you and your ailment best, as every human body is unique, and what might suit you might not be good for the other. So it’s imperative to consult and trust your doctor and not let your health suffer from half baked knowledge online which may make us suffer and repent later on. All of us desire to be healthy and fit for which one must adopt a healthy lifestyle and when needed consult and trust your doctors.
Recently, we have seen or read about incidents of violence against doctors. It’s very sad to hear of such incidents where doctors have been stigmatised and hit even during the Covid outbreak. Also the trust in doctors has declined over time due to several other reasons. The first reason I feel is the print and the visual media which mostly highlights and reports the negative experiences of some of the doctors. Very few times have the good work doctors do on a daily basis been highlighted or shared by the media. Thus the general impression about doctors which goes out to the public is very negative.They are many a times shown to be greedy reckless unempathetic and unkind.There is immense damage being done to the doctor-patient relationship because of this image of doctors which is shown by the media maybe for its TRP. We are also often compared to god and when a patient dies we are targeted. People need to remember that we are not god but humans and we are all just doing our duty and humans are not immortal. Also we need to remember that the doctor treats but the costs and the infrastructure are not in his hands. It’s the hospital management which deals with this but unfortunately it’s the doctor who gets targeted.
(The author is a neuro psychologist & founder of a crisis helpline. Views expressed are personal)
