Consumers are often described as the greatest untapped information resource in medicine, but our research shows that patients and caregivers are already accessing that knowledge.
What will happen when the untapped knowledge of every patient, of every caregiver, of everyone who has something of value to share actually has the opportunity to share it?
Some 19% of internet users now say they use Twitter or another service to share updates about themselves, or to see updates about others–up from 11% in April.
Over half of the adult internet population is between 18 and 44 years old. But larger percentages of older generations are online now than in the past, and they are doing more activities online.
As of December 2008, 11% of online American adults said they used a service like Twitter or another service that allowed them to share updates about themselves or to see the updates of others.
Many Americans are jumping into the participatory Web without considering all the implications. If nothing really bad has happened to someone, they tend neither to worry about their personal information nor to take steps to limit the amount of infor…