Today’s PsychCentral.com highlights a recent study that found one in five teens are using cell phones and online technology to send sexually explicit pictures of themselves to others. The research is from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unwanted Pregnancy and CosmoGirl.com. (Click here to read the original report.)

PsychCentral founder John Grohol, an expert in online psychology issues, says that the “online disinhibition effect,” the phenomenon that prompts people to say and do things in cyberspace that they wouldn’t ordinarily say or do in the real world, is strongly at work here. He notes that nearly one quarter of teens say that technology makes them personally more forward and aggressive. According to Dr. Grohol: Read more…

(Erik Jacobs for The New York Times)

Many people search the Internet for health information. Now new research suggests that the simple act of Googling may be good for your brain health.

Scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles, have shown that searching the Internet triggers key centers in the brain that control decision-making and complex reasoning. The findings, to be published in the upcoming issue of The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, suggest that searching the Web helps to stimulate and may even improve brain function. Read more…

E-mail has become one of the dominant forms of workplace communication, but new research suggests it also may be the most deceptive.

Researchers at Rutgers and DePaul Universities studied how e-mail influenced communication among 48 graduate students. In the study, they told students they had $89. Each student could then divide the money any way he or she liked and give a portion to another person whom they didn’t know.

The students used e-mail or pen and paper to divvy the pot. In describing the amount of money to be divided, students using e-mail lied more than 92 percent of the time. In comparison, about 64 percent of the students using pen and paper lied about the pot size.

Among those students who lied about the size of the pot, the students using pen and paper were more generous. On average, students using e-mail claimed the pot was $56, and they offered the other person $29. Pen-and-paper students said they had $67 to share and offered the other person $34. Read more…

Tuesday’s Science Times devotes an entire issue to the challenges patients face researching their health information. Whether you’ve been diagnosed with a serious illness or are simply trying to make sense of the latest health headlines, you’ll find much of use in this special report called “Decoding Your Health.” Here’s a list of all the stories in the section.

• Five rules for researching your health. How to navigate in a sea of health information.
• How to make sense of medical studies. What does Frankie Avalon have to do with medical research? Gina Kolata explains.
• The exploding online universe. John Schwartz tours health information on the Web.
• What does “F.D.A.-approved” really mean? Gardiner Harris explains what “F.D.A. approved” means.
• How to find a doctor. Roni Caryn Rabin helps you find Dr. Right.
• An alternate route. William J. Broad explores the science of alternative medicine.
• Making sense of your blood test results. The test is routine, but what the heck is bilirubin anyway?
• Self-diagnosis on the Internet. Follow Denise Grady as she searches for answers about toe pain.
• Our favorite sources: The Times’s health writers share some of their favorite online and print health resources, and we review a few more.

And also read Jane E. Brody on the disappearing family doctor, Dr. Abigail Zuger on what it means to be healthy, and Dr. Pauline W. Chen on the resiliency of patients.

A broad analysis of childhood bullying and the link with suicide has found that it’s not just the victims of bullying who are at risk. Bullies themselves also are more likely to have suicidal thoughts.

The finding comes from a review of bullying research from 13 countries. Researchers from the Yale School of Medicine have found that both bullies and their victims appear to be at high risk for suicidal thoughts, according to the report published in the International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health.

“While there is no definitive evidence that bullying makes kids more likely to kill themselves, now that we see there’s a likely association, we can act on it and try to prevent it,” wrote lead author Dr. Young-Shin Kim, assistant professor at Yale School of Medicine’s Child Study Center, in a press release. Read more…

Hamilton Jordan, the former White House chief of staff for President Jimmy Carter, was a well-known force in the health community. During the past 24 years he battled four different forms of cancer and urged cancer patients to empower themselves with information.

Hamilton Jordan, left, walked the White House grounds with President Jimmy Carter in this undated photo. (Ruth Fremson/The New York Times)

After bouts with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, prostate cancer and skin cancer, Mr. Jordan, 63, yesterday died as a result of mesothelioma, another form of cancer. Mr. Jordan often speculated that his lymphoma may have resulted from exposure to the chemical Agent Orange while serving as a volunteer during the Vietnam War. Mesothelioma also has been linked to the chemical.

In his 2001 memoir, “No Such Thing as a Bad Day,” Mr. Jordan outlined his “Top 10 Tips for Cancer Patients.” He spoke about them during this undated interview with WebMD. Here they are: Read more…

(Jason Lee/Reuters)

When my mom was battling cancer, she decided to seek additional input from a cancer center miles away. She went to her oncologist to collect her medical records, only to discover they were stored in several different places.

My mom was weak and sick from chemotherapy, yet she traipsed from hospital to hospital to collect medical files, pathology reports and scan films. I remember her saying at the time, “Why can’t they all be in one place?”

Experiences like this have convinced me of the benefits of electronic medical records. Imagine how much easier it would have been for my mom to just send an electronic version of her medical files to the cancer center.

But now that big companies like Microsoft and Google are getting into the medical record storage business, a fascinating piece in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine raises important questions about whether medical privacy rules should be extended to these private firms. All you have to do is order a book on Amazon and you can quickly see how every move you make online is tracked by marketers. Read more…

Simply providing a surgeon’s e-mail address nearly triples the likelihood that a patient will contact the doctor about the surgery, a new report shows.

Doctors have long debated whether e-mail communication with patients is a good idea. Many physicians believe good medicine can only be practiced in person and are wary of initiating online communication with patients. Legal experts fear e-mail trails with patients could be used in malpractice litigation. But many doctors believe e-mail can be a useful tool for busy surgeons to answer easy questions from patients. E-mail may also increase the odds of detecting postsurgical problems by making it easier for patients to communicate, some doctors say.

A report today in The Archives of Surgery tested whether offering e-mail addresses to patients had any effect on their willingness to communicate with doctors or their satisfaction following surgery. Read more…

The Internet is filled with unreliable health information and bogus claims. But sites dedicated to breast cancer information appear to have a high level of accuracy, a new study shows.

Texas researchers recently analyzed 343 Web pages, retrieved using search engines that consumers are likely to use when seeking information about breast cancer. The study, published online today in the medical journal Cancer, turned up 41 inaccurate statements on 18 of the Web sites, or an error rate of just 5.2 percent.

Previous studies of cancer-oriented Web sites have found a high prevalence of false or misleading information online, the authors noted. Although breast cancer Web sites have a surprisingly good track record for accuracy, the downside is that there is no reliable way for consumers to determine which sites contain accurate information, the researchers found. Web sites displaying complementary and alternative medicine were 15 times more likely to contain false or misleading health information than more conventional medical sites, the researchers said. Read more…

For years, a message circulating on the Internet has urged women to demand a special blood test as a way to screen themselves for ovarian cancer. Doctors have dismissed the e-mail, saying the recommended test isn’t reliable. The original author has even softened her stance, telling women the issue is far more complex than she first thought.

But the message, with its poignant sense of urgency and impassioned pleas for women to spread the word to their friends, has a power all its own.

“I probably answer maybe five or six patients a week who come in saying, ‘I read this e-mail that says I’m supposed to get this test,’ ” said Dr. William H. Parker, clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine. “I don’t mind educating my patients, but it’s based on bad information.”

Now Dr. Parker has decided to wage his own Internet campaign. He and two colleagues have crafted their own missive and released it onto the Internet. Their hope is that the same forces that propelled the first message to popularity can also be used to debunk it. This week, Dr. Parker sent the new message to his friends and acquaintances and set it loose on Internet message boards, starting with the National Uterine Fibroids Foundation, where he is a board member. He is counting on the women who visit the site to tell their friends, and so on and so on. Read more…

More and more patients research their health online. (Darren Staples/Reuters)

It’s time for a second opinion about medical Googlers.

As readers of the Well blog will recall, one of the liveliest discussions to take place here centered around a doctor’s disdain for medical Googlers. New York orthopedist Dr. Scott Haig wrote an essay in Time magazine complaining about a class of patients he called “brainsuckers” — those patients who research their symptoms, illness and doctors on the Web before seeking treatment.

Now another doctor has weighed in on the debate. Dr. Rahul K. Parikh, a San Francisco pediatrician, has written his own essay for Salon.com and notes that physicians like Dr. Haig who reject the Googlers do so at their peril.

“The Internet is a disruptive innovation that has overturned the status quo. It has leveled the playing field between expert and novice — in this case, doctor and patient. While some doctors … may find that challenge threatening to their status as an expert, the Web is now providing the kind of information doctors need to be aware of if we want to continue to be good at our job, and the kind of trends that can help patients be smarter and healthier.”

Read more…

Cruel text messages are the hallmark of the cyber-bully. (Alan Decker for The New York Times)

The schoolyard bully has gone digital.

As more and more young people have access to computers and cell phones, a new risk to teens is beginning to emerge. Electronic aggression, in the form of threatening text messages and the spread of online rumors on social networking sites, is a growing concern. Researchers estimate that between 9 percent and 34 percent of youth are victims of so-called “cyber-bullies.” And as many as one out of five teens has bullied another youth using digital media, reports a special issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health. Read more…

(Jason Lee/Reuters)

Can a patient ever show up at the doctor’s office with too much information?

A doctor’s essay about medical “Googlers” — patients who research their symptoms, illness and doctors on the Web before seeking treatment — suggests they can. The report, which appeared in Time magazine, was written by Dr. Scott Haig, an assistant clinical professor of orthopedic surgery at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He begins with a description of a patient he calls Susan, who seems to be clicking on a keyboard as she speaks to him on the phone. “I knew she was Googling me,” he writes.

Dr. Haig’s disdain for her information-seeking ways becomes quickly evident. He describes the woman’s child, whom she brings to the office, as “a little monster” and notes that the woman soon “launched into me with a barrage of excruciatingly well-informed questions.” Every doctor knows patients like this, he writes, calling them “brainsuckers.” Read more…

Teen social networks may be more beneficial than parents think. (Don Hogan Charles/The New York Times)

To many parents, Web sites like My Space and Facebook are a threat, a door open to the outside world that lets strangers into homes. But the benefits of online interaction may far outweigh the risks.

A commentary in this month’s Journal of Adolescent Research notes that networking sites provide teens with opportunities to develop social and communication skills and to bridge racial and ethnic divides. These benefits often are overlooked by parents worried that adult predators are lurking online.

“We may do adolescents a disservice when we curtail their participation in these spaces, because the educational and psychosocial benefits of this type of communication can far outweigh the potential dangers,” writes Brandesha Tynes, an educational psychologist at the University of Illinois who authored the commentary. Read more…