Engaging with Online Communication-Based Medicine, Reframing Healthcare Delivery to Adolescents

This study examines an expanding form of text-based interaction between healthcare professionals and patients that occurs via computer-mediated formats instead of traditional face-to-face consultations in order to explore a new kind of health provision specifically for adolescents. In particular, it addresses a health question and answer (Q&A) internet resource, i.e. Go Ask Alice!, designed to provide professional health information almost exclusively to adolescents. The analysis of messages posted by adolescents to Go Ask Alice! and relative answers provided by Alice, a virtual persona who speaks for a team of Columbia University healthcare providers, supplies a new source of insight into how we talk about health and illness as an online community of sufferers and healers. Through corpus and discourse procedures, the study (a) shows that the discursive practices of giving information are symmetrical to those employed by the young post writer seeking information; (b) demonstrates how this symmetrical online communication-based medicine can be considered an effective means of healthcare assistance for the younger generation, and (c) paves the way for the development of theories in both linguistics and healthcare provision.