Your
14-year-old daughter tells you that she is worried about a dry patch on her
elbow, a sore on the tip of her tongue and a bent eyelash that hurts when she
blinks. She has been Googling her
ailments, and fears the worst. You:
A. Call the doctor
immediately.
B. Tell her that
you will use your search engines to diagnose her ailments and get to the bottom
of them all.
C. Tell her not
to worry. Let her know that while these
small ills are worth looking into, they are probably also worth a giggle, and
they will surely go away.
D. Call 911!
For every lump,
bump, rash, pain, pimple and bruise, kids today have constant access to an
always on-call “Dr. Google” – an omnipresent option for self-diagnosis. But, is the ability to search the Internet’s
health sites a good thing for our adolescents – offering them helpful
information, self-awareness and self-diagnoses - or are we raising a future
generation of hypochondriacs?
