Cyberchondria: Online Diagnosis Leads to Obsessive Fear

Imagine this: you find a strange rash on your arm, scratch it, then decide to visit Dr. Google, and within three mouse clicks, waves of anxiety reverberate through your body because you're certain you have skin cancer.

Actually, you now have stress—because of self-diagnosis via the nearly limitless health information online.

Now Microsoft has completed the first formal study of health-related Web searches, and the rise of so-called cyberchondria: the distress caused by searching innocuous symptoms, and finding links that then quickly lead to extreme conclusions.

Studying the search behavior of about a million users, Microsoft researchers found that a search for chest pain would more likely lead to a link for the worst-case scenario like heart attack, than to the more mundane, "indigestion." Because of the popularity of "heart attack" links, those are typically the ones that come up near the top of search results.

The study shows that the anxiety from the initial search persists, as the user follows with multiple searches for serious illnesses, and goes through at least one significant interruption at work.

The authors advise Microsoft to develop a new Web search tool that makes initial health searches more accurate. So that Dr. Google stops scaring his patients.

网络疑病症：在线诊断导致过度恐惧

设想如下情景：你在手臂上发现了皮疹，你开始挠，然后决定问问谷歌博士，点击鼠标次数不超过3次，你开始觉得焦虑席卷你的全身，这是因为你确信你得了皮肤癌。

实际上，你现在是太紧张了——原因在于你是利用网上提供的几乎无穷无尽的健康信息做出的自我诊断。

目前微软（Micorsoft）公司完成了第一项正式的与健康相关的网络搜索研究，发现了所谓的网络疑病症的上升。网络疑病症是指在搜索一些良性症状的时候，找到一些相关链接，这些链接很快引导人们得出极端的结论。

通过研究大约1百万网络使用者的搜索行为，微软研究者们发现对胸痛的搜索更容易导致链接到最糟糕的情况，比如心脏病，而不是更一般的“消化不良”。因为有关“心脏病”链接的普遍性，这些就成为搜索靠前的结果。

该项研究显示起初的搜索结果带来的焦虑具有持续性，因为这些使用谷歌搜索的人接下来会对严重的疾病进行多次搜索，在搜索过程中至少会明显地打断工作一次。

这些作者建议微软公司开发一种新的网络搜索工具，从而使初次的健康搜索更加准确。这样的话，谷歌博士就不会再吓到他的患者们了。

Vocabulary:

Cyberchondria：网络疑病症（来自hypochondria: 臆想病）
Diagnosis：诊断
Obsessive：迷恋的；过度的
Rash：皮疹
Scratch：抓，挠
Anxiety：焦虑，担忧
Reverberate：反响
Distress：痛苦
Innocuous：无害的；良性的
Symptom：症状
Scenario：可能的情景
Mundane：世俗的；
Indigestion：消化不良
Initial：开始的；
Persist：持续
Interruption：打断；
Accurate：准确的；精确的