Jonathon's Scenarios
Scenario: Diet
When Jon was diagnosed with adult onset diabetes he received a pamphlet from his primary care provider that listed all of the things that he needs to watch out for, and he received most of his early knowledge about diabetes from the pamphlet.
Jennifer, concerned about his health, began to put a lot of pressure on trying to get Jon to begin eating right. Unfortunately for her, the things listed on the pamphlet Jon received were all terribly bland - they certainly weren't ribs and steak, or bacon and eggs.
After two years of pushing, Jennifer has started to get to Jon about his diet, and he has been trying desperately to find flavorful healthy (diabetes-friendly) food that he can switch into his diet. He has categorized his wellness search criteria as "healthy flavorful food for diabetics." To find information about this he decides to try to use Google. He searches around a bit but doesn't find too much information immediately. He recognizes WebMD and reads about some of the restrictions he has to follow, but cannot find any good suggestions. He thinks, since he has heard of WebMD before, the information on there is reliable, and he uses the guidelines to search for recipes to try on Jennifer's favorite site - allrecipes.com.
Scenario: Arthritis
Jon started noticing his arthritis in his late forties. He knew from his parents to start taking aspirin as soon as possible and it would help with the pain. He did that for a few years, and had confirmed the idea with his doctor. This didn't really help the pain, but he decided he should just stay the course - doctors know best.
After searching for diabetes information on WebMD, he thought he should also search for arthritis information there as well. He used WebMD's internal search for "arthritis" but the results were difficult to interpret, and mostly seemed to be ads. More persistent than normal, he decided to use the search term "arthritis cures." Most of the results Jon finds appear to be alternative medicine, which he also considers to be hocus pocus. Dissuaded from searching for more information, Jon resigns to continue to stay the course with the aspirin and gives up looking for more solutions.