Stop discussing your family’s medical conditions on social media channels like FaceBook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Stop blogging about your children’s illnesses. Please.
You want support and information?
Pick up the phone and talk one-on-one with medical professionals. Join a confidential support group. Discuss your concerns over dinner with your family and loved ones. Get counseling.
FaceBook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are completely inappropriate communication channels to bandy about personal medical and health issues. Personally, I don’t want to hear about your teen daughter’s battle with depression, drug addiction, and bulimia. It’s none of my business. Telling stories about your grandmother’s dementia helps you deal with caretaker stress — but probably at the expense of her dignity and privacy. Pimping out your baby son as the face of a chronic disease — not to help him personally, but to “raise money to find a cure for all those afflicted” — is particularly despicable.
Knock it off.
On a certain level, I understand how tempting it can be if you are going through a difficult time with an ailing family member. You want to reach out and feel the love. But laying out others’ illnesses (or your own!) on social media channels to get pity, support, sympathy, or money from strangers and near-strangers can seriously limit opportunities.
Let me summarize a few stories I’ve heard from employers. The stories, in essence, go like this:
“We had a great job candidate. We did a search on FaceBook. Found out through a family member that he has diabetes / arthritis / cancer / high cholesterol / etc. We know this shouldn’t matter, but we also know that we need to keep our health insurance costs down. A well person is likely to be more productive than a chronically ill person. But we don’t have to tell him that. We can just say: ‘Sorry. We found another candidate that more closely met our needs.’”
It’s pretty to think that we have laws and policies to safeguard against this kind of discrimination. It’s wonderful to believe the hiring managers are nice people who can be counted upon to rise above such obvious prejudices. It’s also a sad reality that getting health insurance or even a job is a struggle for many in the United States. Why make it even more difficult?
I don’t want limit the career opportunities of the people I love. I don’t want to narrow their choices for accessing health care. And I don’t want to put their private matters into the hands of strangers so that I can selfishly squeak out a little sympathy for myself. How about you?
How much family health information do you share on FaceBook, Twitter, and LinkedIn? What’s in it for you?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m glad we live in a country where you can blog and post such great flame bait. I’m also glad we live in a country where someone can post a response that is completely contrary to yours.
But it is overwhelmingly obvious that you are uninformed and inexperienced about the emotional and communication dynamics that go on when you or someone in your immediate family are suffering. Social Media such as Facebook and Twitter are just that, media and if you extrapolate that just a little bit its also called communication.
I agree when it comes to LinkedIn and other professional social media – keep it professional. But on Facebook and Twitter – I think you’ve overstepped. These mediums are not exclusive territory of social marketers, corporations and business opportunists.
You’ve obviously have never been in a situation when you have a critically ill child and have a large extended family that wants information. I’m living that situation right now. [Note from Laura: At this point, the commenter revealed a private health fact about another person. I've redacted this one sentence to preserve the privacy I discussed in this very blog post.] A very large support base of family and friends that desire information for support and so they know what they can pray for. Do you know what it would be like to verbally tell the same information 100+ times!?!? Do YOU?
I support your right to opinion but its painfully obvious your world has never had to deal with heartbreaking tragedy. If you don’t want to hear this info from your Facebook friends or your Twitter stream – you’re the one that needs to change something.
Don’t take this response as hatred towards you or your blog – I just disagree with your assessment.
While FaceBook and Twitter are not “exclusive territory” for opportunists and predators — the fact that they might be there should give you pause before you freely hand them private health information.
Some hospitals create private online channels so that loved ones can communicate private matters in a secure environment — instead of exposing them to the kinds of risks I mention in this post. Over the years, we’re probably going to see more of these kinds of private social networks in health care.
Until then, please find other communication channels to share information and get support.