So, I either have a pimple or I have cancer.

Thank you, Google, for showing me the two simplest answers that you could possibly have provided me. Thank you for directing me to WebMD, Mayo Clinic and a couple of forums such as Yahoo! Answers or generic-website-for-hypochondriacs-united.com, providing me with a wealth of information and encouraging me to believe that a mysterious bump might be an ominous symbol of my impending death.

But Google, and all of the websites to which you link me without fail, you never fail to remind me that it’s probably no big deal, it could just be a pimple. But then again, if you don’t get it checked out, it’s probably cancer, and you’ll die from failing to recognize it in its earliest stages. But if you do get it checked out, your doctor will laugh at you, because, seriously, it’s a pimple.

In the Stone Age, or in any pre-technological — or, let’s not even go back that far! — any pre-search engine era, people had to determine for themselves whether or not their problems were minor irritations (say, an ingrown hair or a blister from hot tea), or something worth picking up the phone and dialing a doctor for (chlamydia, herpes, cancer, a rare infectious rash that could spread all over your body if you don’t go to the ER now, etc). Now we are so privileged that when a minor bump or itch or pain piques our concern, we can easily just type it into Google, and all of a sudden, a world of medical terms and possible exits of this universe are introduced to us.

We have lost track of our own bodies. We no longer trust ourselves to know that a fever for a few days straight and nonstop vomiting means something’s probably not right. We, instead, have to find some electronic forum and inquire, “I’ve been vomiting for a few days straight and can’t stand up and have been running 102.5, do you think it could be food poisoning?”

The sniffles could possibly turn into a sinus infection, so why not throw away a $15 co-pay at your general practitioner just in case, because some website said it could take a turn for the worse. And we all know that an untreated sinus infection could only lead to insert-obscure-terminal-infectious-nasal-cavity-disease here. All that’s going to happen is that the doctor will direct you to your local pharmacy and tell you to pick up some ibuprofen and Sudafed, and to take it easy and drink plenty of fluids.

But didn’t you know that? Didn’t you know that if your entire body aches, it generally means, “No, don’t go to the gym, don’t run around outside half naked, don’t operate heavy machinery like cranes, but rest?”

Not only are we out of touch with our bodies, but we also need a hell of a lot of self-knowledge and inner strength to refute the probable hypochondria that coincides with search engine-ing your medical problems. I mean, whenever I see that a sore throat could be mono, the sniffles could be swine, that same old pimple could be cancer or my paper cut could lead to AIDS, I know that all of these infections are possible, and thus worth my concern, right?

Or at least, it’s worth a little more than hand sanitizer, especially when I’m at the Pods, about to go online to Google the cough that the guy next to me has. It sounds like a squirrel is inside his lungs. What will it be? Rare lung-destroying epidemic … or a side effect of Binghamton weather?