When Hailey Bieber begins a statement with “the Internet is a scary place for a pregnant woman,” you can’t be entirely sure what will follow. Will she detail the cognitive dissonance created when doomscrolling collides with life-bearing? Or divulge the fears she has about bringing a child into the harsh glare of fame’s spotlight, as the 27-year-old model and entrepreneur did only a year ago, when she jokingly said that that prospect made her cry “all the time”?
Turns out it’s neither a global nor a hyperpersonal worry that gives Bieber pause when she’s tempted to go online. It’s a problem for the digital age that happens to be deeply relatable: cyberchondria, also known as the anxiety or “negative outcome of online health information seeking,” per one scientific journal.