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December 13, 2013

Strange But True!

Q. Is it the “dawn of a new affliction” or the “spawn of a new affliction”? Only that powerful new website WebMD knows for sure.

A. Before the Internet, getting a medical diagnosis required consulting a trained professional, says Mental Floss magazine. But with WebMD's 1996 debut of “Symptom Checker,” nervous browsers have been able to do self-diagnosis with just a few mouse clicks. Thus has the site “fomented a brand-new malady: ‘cyberchondria' — Internet-induced hypochondria.”


 
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