The Impact of the Internet on Mesothelioma Patients: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Abstract

At this point, it is hard for most of us to imagine a world where information isn’t available to us at our fingertips. But the Internet, along with its ability to provide us with almost any knowledge we require in a matter of milliseconds, is a relatively new invention. Moreover, tools necessary to make the Internet actually useful are an even more recent occurrence. For perspective, Google, the most popular search engine, didn’t exist before 1998 and wasn’t quite helpful until the early 2000s when the company went public and underwent exponential improvements in its coverage as well as visibility (Wikipedia 2018). In terms of social media networks, it was 2006 when Facebook opened its product to the general public, though the network didn’t gain much prominence until about 2010, when for the first time it reported 400 million users (Wikipedia 2017). As of September 2017, Facebook users have reached 2.07 billion monthly active users (Facebook 2017).