---
title: "Never assume that what you are seeing or experiencing is everyone else’s reality"
description: "One of the recurring themes of my work is to remind people that today is just a moment in time, that things will change -- that things have changed even if you personally can't see it yet."
date: "2013-04-15"
authors:
  - name: "Susannah Fox"
    job_title: "Former Researcher"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/susannah-fox/"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2013/04/15/never-assume-that-what-you-are-seeing-or-experiencing-is-everyone-elses-reality/"
categories:
  - "Health Care"
  - "Social Media"
---

# Never assume that what you are seeing or experiencing is everyone else’s reality

[Atul Gawande](https://twitter.com/Atul_Gawande) can shine a bright spotlight, even with just a few tweets. On Saturday he linked to an [article ](http://www.internalmedicinenews.com/single-view/acp-and-fsmb-offer-social-media-guidelines/e46e5672f671d1de36e6daa11ff13595.html)about new social media guidelines for physicians which states:

> Aside from not "friending" patients [on Facebook], the guidelines also recommend the following to physicians:

>  • Don’t use text messaging for medical interactions, even with established patients, except with caution and the patient’s consent.

>  • Only use e-mail within the context of an established relationship with a patient, and with that patient’s consent.

>  • Establish a professional online profile so that it appears at the top of a web-based search, above any physician rating site.

>  • Discourage e-mail or on-line communications with individuals who are not patients, instead referring them to make an appointment or visit an appropriate health provider.

>  • Manage their digital image, including refraining from posting about personal social activities that might not reflect positively or providing less-than-measured comments on Twitter, blogs, or in response to online articles.

I captured a bit of the online conversation in a Storify, tweaking the title to characterize it more broadly: [Doctor-patient online communication](http://storify.com/SusannahFox/doctor-patient-online-communication). I didn't want it to scroll away and be lost, since I think the reactions capture a moment in time.

Speaking of moments in time, I received an email on Saturday from Arash Najibfard, an undergrad at UCSD, who'd found my 2007 interview on NPR, "[Patients Turn to the Internet for Health Information](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15166387)," and asked for a link to the 2001 AMA press release warning people about the dangers of going online for health advice. Happily, I saved a print copy of that release and a PDF lives on the e-patients.net blog:

[AMA Suggests Resolutions for a Healthy New Year](http://www.e-patients.net/AMA_Dec2001.pdf) (December 20, 2001)

One of the recurring themes of my work is to remind people that today is just a moment in time, that things will change -- that things ***have changed*** even if you personally can't see it yet.

All of these conversations -- this weekend's tweets, the 2007 NPR story, the 2001 press release -- are simply snapshots of a certain population at a certain time. Never assume that what you are seeing or experiencing is everyone else's reality. Look to [data ](https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/Commentary/2011/November/Pew-Internet-Health.aspx)to give you a clear picture. Look to leaders in the field to give you a sense of where things are going. And in the case of online communications about health, that sometimes means [e-patients](http://e-patients.net/), not clinicians.

I'm not saying who's right, who's wrong, or what's the right policy. I'm saying: Don't assume. Keep your eyes and ears wide open. That's what I learned from [Tom Ferguson, MD](http://doctom.com/), one of my teachers, and from my grandmother, [Rosalie Yerkes Figge](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/21/AR2006042101965.html), who I talk about at the start of the NPR interview. They passed away the same week in April 2006 and I miss them every day.

*Join a discussion about this post on * [ *my personal blog* ](http://susannahfox.com/2013/04/15/never-assume-that-what-you-are-seeing-or-experiencing-is-everyone-elses-reality/) *.*