Sometimes I google symptoms for the heck of it And according to google right now I'm either pregnant, depressed Or I have cancer
That's called cyberchondria - where you look up symptoms and think 'Ooh! I think I may have that!'. It's the computer version of hypochondria.
That's ok, if I looked up symptoms about me, it would probably come up with the number for a coroner Happy days
Doctors use google, too. It's all about knowing enough to interpret the information carefully, which many non-medical folks can't do. I actually predicted my own heart diagnosis 100% accurately, but I still went to the doctor to check (and to smugly tell him I already knew what I had ).
Wow! I've corrected some psychologists. I've also explained trans stuff to several doctors. However, I'm not nearly as knowledgeable as most of them about other things. They're very helpful! If you ain't careful you can worry yourself enough to become unwell! As you say you're doing it for fun, that's fine. According to the internet I'm an underweight asexual autistic schizophrenic psychopath with low blood pressure. It's never lupus.
I do my best to tell clients not to google their symptoms. I tell them to come to me and I can work towards diagnosis.
Googling symptoms is scary :/ my friend had chicken pox and she googled it and apparently discovered there was a substantial chance that she'd die. I had malaria and I found a similar thing when I searched for it. Now I just don't search for them at all
