Sunday, October 28, 2012
When & Where: So I came across this word when I was watching a show on National Geographic about strange diseases and disorders. In the episode, two women claimed to have negative physical ailments from technology (specifically wifi). The women both noticed that they were experiencing the same pain like symptoms. To combat this disorder, the women moved to a cave in Switzerland where there was no presence of wifi. Since living in the cave (for 6 months), there symptoms had vanished. The medical experts that commented on the women’s adverse reaction to technology claimed that these women were experiencing “nocebo effect.”
What it means: According to Wikipedia.com, nocebo effect is a “reaction or response refers to harmful, unpleasant, or undesirable effects a subject manifests after receiving an inert dummy drug or placebo.” So basically, these women convinced themselves that “technology” was going to produce negative physical consequences.
Reflective Commentary: Like I mentioned in my last blog, I feel that these words or ideas say a lot about who we are as a literate person. My selection of medical words illustrates that I am highly interested in medical terms. Although my primary care doctor suggests that I stay away from these websites that help to self-diagnose, I can’t. It’s like my innate response to stress to immediately look-up the symptoms and self-diagnose. I think this also says a lot about our culture. We have a hard time waiting for results. We want feedback/ results immediately. With technological tools that can deliver information in seconds, we expect everything to be that fast.
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