Belgian Government on healthinfo: "don't Google it!"
Lucien Engelen
Innovation strategist health(care). Speaker. International Ambassador Nursing Innovation. (im)Patient. Laurentius MC - Transform.Health - Deloitte
Yes it's really there : "Don't Google it, Check a reliable source." The Belgian Government is actually advising people NOT to Google on health symptoms.
Although i think that the use of the internet always has to come with a healthy dose of caution, and differs also for low literacy and can even be misleading but the this advertising bureau messed it up. Sure, they have found a great way to express concerns about googling on health and that if fine, but the exaggeration leading to bluntly state DON'T GOOGLE IT, as opposed to help people, could do just the opposite. May be even more people will get sick (or worse) by nót finding the proper information on the internet.
A great comment-blog on this was posted by Joyce Lee, MD, MPH "we no longer live in the 1990's."
The use of add words campaigns is not new in health(care) at all. In 2012 for instance it was used to address people who are googling on keywords as suicide to display an telephone number for help. I'm curious what my friend former Google's Chief Health Strategics Roni Zeiger would think of this. He spoke about Google and Health at our first TEDxMaastricht in 2011.
What do you think about this Belgian campaign that supposedly was to add some humor in it, but in my opinion even could turn out to be harmful for people in search for conditions and symptoms. Do you think it is a good idea of the Belgian Government ? Please leave your comment below.
MBA, Digital&Social Media Marketing Expert, Copywriter
9y:))
SAG AFTRA AEA
9yIt is resarch for me. If I have a serious medical question I take my "google" results with me along with my own personal experience to my consultation with my very qualified professional physician. I would never take google as the last word when it comes to my health, however I do consider it a very helpful tool.
(Interim) Lab Manager | Technical Specialist | MedTech Consultant | Python / PLC | Automation & Robotisation | GCLP / GMP / GxP
9yWhere are the "European Internet Nannies" (IAN) when you need them to rate and/or close down malicious websites on ranking and presenting sites. The dominance and providing misleading information from certain weblink presenting sites should be stopped by an IAN like NGO. Such NGO holds panels of experts that have options like "like/dislike, close down/rewrite" for website ranking. That way the idiots with their misinformation and lack of proper arguments are banned much more easily if it's about true healthcare.
CEO QTRACER.COM QMS software / AJETO.SITE klusservice
9yI think that you can't stop people from googling, but you can help them to do this right and advise that you should always consult your doctor on medical issues.
Multi Award Winning CEO & Clinical Director Skin Beautiful Medical & Cosmetic Clinic Group | KOL Global Lead Trainer Medical Advisory Board | CQC Regulated
9yGoogle cannot provide definitive or direct answers to explicit health related questions. To assume otherwise is taking a search engine out of context. Google is a very good tool for finding collective, secondary data. That is a list of websites on which to pose the question to directly.