The
need to constantly check social networking sites like Facebook can be
so habit forming that psychologists now have a name for the obsession:
Facebook Addiction Disorder. And while many critics might dismiss this
latest FAD as a relatively harmless waste of
time, new research suggests that incessantly updating your status and
gawking at your friend’s photos can cause serious illness.Earlier this year, for example, researchers at the University of Leeds in the UK surveyed the Web-surfing habits of around 1,300 people and found that those who regularly frequented social networking site were much more prone to clinical depression than other internet users. Facebook and similar sites have even been blamed for higher incidences of venereal disease because, public health officials say, social networking encourages more causal, unprotected sex. And now Italian doctors are blaming Mark Zuckerberg’s site for driving a man to serious breathing problems.
Reporting today in the Lancet, Gennaro D’Amato, a respiratory physician at the Antonio Cardarelli High Specialty Hospital in Naples, Italy, and his colleagues detail the case of an 18-year-old asthmatic whose breathing difficulties worsened after he repeatedly checked his former girlfriend’s Facebook profile and status updates. Apparently, the sight of his ex ‘friending’ other potential suitors drove this young man to exhale less air after going online, which, in turn, drove asthma attacks.
“This case indicates that Facebook, and social networks in general, could be a new source of psychological stress, representing a triggering factor for exacerbations in depressed asthmatic individuals,” the authors write.
But Facebook can also be a blessing to asthma sufferers. According to researchers at the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor’s Center for Managing Chronic Disease, many patients and families turn to social networking sites to gain emotional support and share information about asthma-related topics.
So, why not post a link on Facebook about the paper in this month’s Nature Medicine on how targeting bitter taste receptors in the lungs might provide a new target for treating asthma? Or the related news and views? Or the news feature about how drugs for altitude sickness might open new therapeutic avenues for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease?
