The Downside of Connected Healthcare: Cyberchondria

MollsEisley writes: Like hypochondria, cyberchondria is simply a more elegant way of saying "it's all in your head" — only in this case the people self-diagnosing are using tenuous data gleaned from the Internet and our ever-connected gadgets to support their hypotheses. Virtually everyone who has put the Microsoft Band through its paces has come away with the claim that its heart rate monitor is simply bad. ... The Moto 360’s heart rate monitor doesn’t fare much better, and in only the most perfect, motionless conditions will it provide anything close to an accurate reading. These are horribly inaccurate health tools, yet they are used as bullet points for would-be buyers to cling to. ... Even WebMD—the service that has given so many cyberchondriacs the fuel to continue guessing—has a note on every single one of its countless pages that states the site “does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.” And yet, that’s the one and only thing most people use WebMD for.

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Obligatory House MD reference

[Anonymous Coward]

"Who needs med school when you've got wifi?"