Dee Vernberg, an assistant communications professor at the University of Kansas, is looking into just this issue by studying narratives Internet users post to a Web health site. In everyday conversation, said Vernberg, people feel uncomfortable delivering personal, sometimes profound, news about their health to someone in person or on the phone. The one on the receiving end is unsure how to react, fearful of saying the wrong thing. The easy way out, the one most taken, is to limit such talk at all. But on the Internet and over e-mail, many of these worries fall away.
People can take time to digest the news.
They can think about how to respond. Much of Vernberg's research centers on anonymous postings to a health site. The Millers, however, were sending a very personal story to an extended web of friends and relatives. They had to decide how intimate they wanted to be. They were inundated with people calling and writing, and it became exhausting to keep up, Steve said.