... And still they hurt!

Social networks are harmful to health! Yes, yes, hurray! Now all those who fought for their ban, and all system administrators, denies access to them may see themselves as a real fighter for a cause. However, let's see whether all so simple...

The fact that computers in general for health is not very useful, no one in doubt. The damaged eyesight and posture, various diseases that arise due to sedentary lifestyles, and even mental disorders - that just could not be imputed to a standard personal computer! And social networks, devouring time, those who sit at computers, consume with the times and the health of these unfortunates. But, as the news published and replicated online media last week, the harm to health from social networks is expressed not only in this ...

As discovered by specialists from Columbia University and the company MixedInk, social networks have made very significant contributions to the formation of a variety of Semi-Medical myths and spreading false information about diseases and medicines with which these diseases are treated. Experts have tracked more than 52 thousand messages through blogs on the popular social site, which refers to different antibiotics. The results were impressive: More than a 700 of them medical information was completely false. This concerns both information about the dosage of medicines, as well as data on the indications for their use.

The mechanism of this kind of misinformation is extremely simple. Imagine that the owner of one of the popular social network ekauntov suddenly started cold with all the characteristic symptoms: cough, runny nose, fever, weakness, etc. He forced himself gets to your computer and writes a status message along the following lines: I can not, I'm dying, tell a good antibiotic! Naturally, wishing to suggest something to cure a favorite author is a lot, but not everyone is not something that medical education, but even the basic idea of the different medications. Thus, some councils are known to be wrong, to the same people, after reading these tips, start to propagate false information or to apply it in practice. In the case of colds, it may be not so scary, but really serious illnesses can be deadly.

However, every cloud has a silver lining. The researchers noted that social networks have a positive side to physicians: if someone's friends on social networks available to the person deemed serious symptoms, such person will go to the doctor are more likely than before he consulted with their virtual friends.

Although the study mentioned above, affect exclusively and only social network, we can say that this is a common problem for almost any kind of Internet resources, which communicate with each other people who are not specialists in the subject. Everybody knows that any information obtained from the web, should be treated critically. However, as long known, and that social networks are harmful. Since that study, in fact, is nothing new and have not identified...