Technology Impact on New Adult Behavior about Health Information

New Adult Information Seeking Behaviors

Seeking health information is a normal new adult task, part of the maturation process. Such seeking is part of new adults’ exploration of themselves and the world around them (Agosto & Hughes-Hassell, 2006). The range of health information sought by new adults demonstrates varied needs: illnesses, accidents, chronic conditions, STDs including HIV/AIDS, nutrition, fitness, sexual activity, pregnancy, and mental health issues. The most popular topics deal with sexual health and drugs (Eysenbach, 2008). New adults tend to seek information out of need or fear, such as a personal problem, rather than as a proactive effort to be healthy, such as eating nutritionally (Larsen & Martey, 2011). Nor did they tend to look for pain management advice (Henderson, et al., 2013); it should be noted that those who did seek such information tended to be female risk-takers or self-medicators. As another instance, new adults seldom used online abstinence information, althought they were more likely to look for to find contraceptions than younger teens. On the other hand, they would look for information that might avoid “genes as destiny” syndrome or counteract past poor health choices. Some may also seek health information to address some kind of social stigma that is health-based, such as acne (Lariscy, Reber, & Paek, 2011). However, a lack of guaranteed privacy makes new adults wary about accessing LGBT or HIV information (Magee et al., 2012).