Perfect description of someone I know but who was already a hypochondriac for a long time before the Internet–like most women. The Internet just makes her much more efficient and alleviates the burden of using all those big heavy books. Of course this is the reason why women live longer than men.
The author’s sardonic argument would ring much closer to the truth if it included the constant bombardment of drug advertisements that we all must suffer from every form of media–print, radio, television, the internet and email spam–as the primary cause of the described paranoia.
Perhaps Mass Marketing Related Hysteria-Internet Corroborated Hypochondria, while quite cumbersome to say, would be a more descriptive name for the syndrome.
MMRH-ICH for short. Sounds like murrick. I know I just coined that one.
By the way, if anyone cares, I think I either have an abdominal hernia or testicular cancer. I haven’t decided which one but I probably wont get it checked either way until I can no longer walk–like most men.
-DC
