Many older adults get health information from self-defined experts online. Up to 35% of older Americans — and half of adults under 50 — get health information and advice from social media influencers and podcasters, most of whom are not health care professionals
https://www.health.harvard.edu/preventive-care/many-older-adults-get-health-information-from-self-defined-experts-online
12 Comments
Well, maybe if you didn’t have to wait days to weeks for an appt. that has a minimum charge for an office visit just to ask a fucking question, then that percentage wouldn’t be so high.
Wow, it’s chilling that people have had to resort to social media after their doctors failed them
What do you mean all my ailments can’t be cured by simply using probiotics to repopulate my gut bacteria?
In some ways you’re right. So you have to do your own research. But in today’s world it really is up to the individual to keep themselves healthy. And that mean staying on top of medical information. I have a subscription to Nutritional Action magazine for years . Put out by the Center for Science in the Public Interest. It is short and inexpensive. Cover many areas of public health. Check it out
Four years ago I thought people getting health information online were out of their minds. Then I got sick with Covid where the effects lasted for over a year and started getting Perimenopause symptoms, and doctors were useless at best. I was paying hundreds and thousands of dollars to be told “nothing was wrong” with me from many doctors. The information I found online I feel saved my life. I was able to enable my body to heal itself and when I did need a doctor for prescriptions I got the knowledge online about how best to get what I wanted in the 5 minutes they are actually in the room listening to me. You do need to have critical thinking to be able to differentiate the good from bad and you need to know how to analyze research studies, but I will never look down on anyone getting their health info this way again.
This can really give some crazy insight onto how influential social media‘s political ads can be.
Cambridge analytica worked, targeted ads on TikTok and Instagram are likely responsible for a large percentage (large enough to swing an outcome) of the 2024 election.
Anyone criticizing people for doing so need to ask themselves: if you were sick for a good chunk of your life wouldn’t you do research to figure it out after being dismissed by doctors?
Many American cannot afford healthcare. So they turn to the screen they are likely already addicted to for answers
If the healthcare system wasn’t a complete disaster, maybe they wouldn’t have to…
Health care professional equals knowledge on pills…theyre barely study nutrition which is kind of wild tbh
The issue is that people are turning to people like this because doctors don’t know what the fuck they are doing most of the time. They gaslight patients so much that you can hire a medical advocate now..if the medical system wasn’t completely broken on every single level imaginable people wouldn’t have to turn to influencers etc. If someone with any of the idiopathic syndromes and disorders get real results elsewhere then more power to them. However alot of them are grifters.
Yeah, it’s either this or ChatGPT for a lot of people. Both unreliable in different ways