World Wide Web Packed Full Of Trash

from the all-of-it-is-useless dept

I went to the dentist earlier today, and he told me random things about my teeth that made me a little confused, so the first thing I did afterwards was do some web searches to see if I could get more info on the things he told me about. It seems I’m not alone in doing this as more and more people turn to the web for medical information whenever they, or a friend or relative, has a major medical condition. At the same time, though, another study has shown that many “medical” websites are full of useless junk and not to be trusted. I’m sure there are plenty of bad sites out there, but the nice thing about the web is that I can read a variety of opinions – see where they come from and decide who’s more likely to be telling the truth – and at the very least, speak to my doctor about the issues that are raised. That seems like a better system (though, doctors may not agree) than blindly agreeing to whatever the doctor tells you.


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Comments on “World Wide Web Packed Full Of Trash”

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2 Comments
El Volio says:

No Subject Given

The problem is that many people do not have any real critical thinking skills. They may not like what their doctor tells them, go online and read some article that jives with what they’d like to hear, and go accuse their doctor of lying or simply ignore his advice. It’s sort of an extension of “if it’s in the paper, it must be true.”

That said, there’s no real solution to this. No entity exists that can regulate the dispensing of advice on the Internet, and unfortunately many individuals simply haven’t learned how to think about problems like this.

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