‘Crowd-diagnosing’ STDs on Reddit 

Here’s something interesting: In our era of oversharing on social media, new research finds that Reddit users are increasingly turning to the news aggregation and discussion website for “crowd-diagnosing” sexually transmitted diseases. A subreddit, or channel, for the topic of STDs was created in November 2010, and between then and February 2019, 17,000 posts were added to the subreddit — from eight posts in 2010 to nearly 3,400 in 2018. Almost 60% of the posts sought a crowd diagnosis — 20% were for a second opinion following a formal diagnosis and 31% included images showing physical symptoms. And some 87% of the posts got at least one reply. The study didn’t investigate the accuracy of responses, but the authors suggest that having health workers respond to such crowd-diagnosing requests may mean users get helpful — and accurate — information.