Many Young PeopleSurf Net for Health Data

Maybe people in their teens and 20s have already downloaded most of the music they want. Or maybe they’re getting tired of their friends’ e-mails. Or maybe ... they just enjoy toying with polling organizations.

According to a survey released last week by the Kaiser Family Foundation, an independent health philanthropy, “more young people go online for health information than to shop, check sports scores, chat” or download music. The survey, inevitably titled Generation Rx.com, drew on phone interviews with 1,209 Americans nationwide, ranging in age from age 15 to 24--from high school freshmen all the way to adults with several years in the workforce. Fully 50% of the group told interviewers that they had searched the Web for information on specific diseases, such as cancer or diabetes. The most popular health topics were predictable: sexual health (44%), weight issues (25%), and mental health (23%). At the same time, seven in 10 of those ages 15 to 17 said they had visited a pornography site “accidentally” and just under half confessed that they were upset by that experience.

They bounced back, though, just enough to assure interviewers that they were overwhelmingly skeptical (83%) of the quality of health information on the Web, compared to what they could get from doctors, parents or the evening news.