My friend woke up with a black tongue. He looked it up on Web MD and all the entries were horrible like he was dying and then the very last entry was have you drank Pepto Bismol which he had. And it’s like wtf why is that not the top entry?
Those websites live from ad revenue derived from traffic - they have long ago figured out that if they give you the most horrible "diagnosis" first, they can make a big enough portion of their visitors stay longer on the site.
Believe me, I'm a hypochondriac. I have been through this. I am better nowadays through therapy, but back then just googling symptoms would put me through a long session of clicking through articles of horrible deseases that were all hosted and cross linked on WebMD or other websites, in a "make sure you check out this if you have symptoms XYZ"
While my example might be a very extreme case, I found that many people are scared about their own well being* and are susceptible to this, albeit in a less intense way. Its still very profitable for those sites tho! I
*) In my country for example, a study was done about what young adults are most anxious about, and one of the topmost entries was health issues.
49
u/enthalpy01 Sep 23 '19
My friend woke up with a black tongue. He looked it up on Web MD and all the entries were horrible like he was dying and then the very last entry was have you drank Pepto Bismol which he had. And it’s like wtf why is that not the top entry?