[Digital media as laypeople's source of information about the environment and health]. / Digitale Medien als Informationsquelle über Umwelt und Gesundheit für Laien.

ABSTRACT

Over the last two decades, the Internet has become the primary source of information. Thanks to the Internet, laypeople have access to information from the health and the environmental sector, which was for a long time available only to experts (e. g. scientific publications, statistics). Information on the Internet varies in quality, as generally anybody can publish online, without any quality control. At the same time, Internet use comes with specific situational characteristics. Given that the amount of information is nearly unlimited and that this information is easily available via search engines, users are not restricted to one or just a few texts, but can choose between multiple sources depending on their motivation and interest. Together with the heterogeneity of the sources, this provides the basis for a strong impact of motivation on the process and the outcomes of information acquisition online. Based on empirical research in the domain of Internet searching in the health sector, the current article discusses the impact of the use of digital media in the context of environmental medicine. Research has led to four conclusions: (1) Users are not sufficiently sensitive to the quality of information. (2) Information supporting their own opinion is preferably processed. (3) Users who feel threatened focus on positive information. (4) Vigilant users focus on negative information, which might result in cyberchrondria. The implications of these effects for the use of digital media in the sector of environmental medicine are discussed.