Facebook triggers asthma

Can Facebook trigger asthma attacks? Apparently so. Italian doctors report in The Lancet on a new and previously unreported health risk associated with the ubiquitous social networking site: Asthma.

Sound crazy? Granted, the headlines are catchy and trying to ride the wave of social-media. But the details actually make sense. The case-report discusses an 18-year old man with asthma who was distraught after his girlfriend un-friended then broke up with him. After gaining access to her facebook page, he saw that she had friended several new young men, then had an asthma attack. Working with his mother, the doctors tried an experiment, using a "peak flow meter" to measure lung capacity, they took pre- and post Facebook measures and found that viewing his ex's Facebook status triggered an asthmatic reduction of breathing capacity of around 20%.

The actual cause of his breathing troubles is not, of course, Facebook but rather the psychological stress that the encounter triggered in him.  No doubt a similar encounter on MySpace would have left hum equally out-of-breath. The larger implication being that social media may have all types of unintended health consequences, some new and unique, others mediated by more common and well understood processes. For all the important ways that technology can improve health, as we spend more and more time with social and new media, we should keep aware of the small yet significant ways that it can toy with our physical and mental health.

The cure for our bereft and literally-breathless 18-year? A counseling session with a psychiatrist advising him to not log onto Facebook.

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