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• 1 2020-09-14T15:28:30-04:00 Viral Vernacular 24 Personal Reflection: Viral Vernacular plain 2020-12-09T20:44:49-05:00
             Everyone has faced illness in their life, whether it is a bout of the common cold, the flu, mental disorders, or some other affliction. It seems, then, that illness could be seen as a universal language—something everyone understands—but our understanding of illness in others only goes so far. Illness is universal, but the way each person perceives it, is not.
  
              Our perception of illness is built on the foundations of cultural norms, social significance, and personal meaning. What illnesses are considered “normal?” Which illnesses are considered an “anomaly?” How will illness affect life outside of the body? Does it affect one’s ability to work, have a job, or continue life normally? What does it mean to the individual to be sick? All of these are questions we must consider when looking into perception of illness, and each of these questions are built on our understanding of language. Metaphors permeate our daily lives, from simple things such as being a “night owl” or an “early bird,” to describing one’s “moral compass.” Metaphors are essential to developing language and culture, so it is no surprise that illness metaphors are ever present in our lives.
  
              Illness metaphors are metaphors that are either used to describe illness in a non-medical way (patient is “battling” cancer) or use medical terms or jargon to describe a non-medical phenomenon (“going viral”). The concept of illness metaphors then leads me to ask, how can we incorporate metaphor into the diagnosis and treatment of patients? What are the benefits and setbacks of doing so? What are the implications of illness metaphors in our daily lives?
  
         In a medical setting, the idea of illness seems to vary from physician to patient. To a patient, illness encompasses the physical symptoms, the emotional baggage wrought by the illness, a potential diagnosis, and treatment. To a physician, illness is biomedical— it is a trail of symptoms and biological processes leading to a diagnosis. This is inherently a faulty system, because our understanding of illness as biological is based on “socially constructed categories” (Kleinman, 17).  Despite reliance on a biomedical approach, 80 percent of diagnoses are made by listening to the patient’s history alone (Hampton, et al. 1975). The patient’s language is of utmost importance to not only making a diagnosis but creating a treatment that fits within a patient’s framework. A holistic approach to medicine—one that encompasses biomedicine and a sociocultural understanding of the patient— can provide insight into the best way to treat a patient. This approach considers each individual’s varying use of metaphor and language based on cultural significance. Metaphors are also used in treatment of illness. Treatment may be having a “battle” with the illness, or it may be “healing” the body. The holistic approach described above can also be applied to mental health, in an effort to destigmatize mental illness. Individualizing the experience with language creates a safer environment with which to treat patients.
  
          Although there are many clear benefits to using metaphor in diagnosing and treating illness, there are also many drawbacks. Each individual’s use of language is personal. We can consider how people describe headaches; one may say their head is exploding with pain, while another may say it feels like their head is being squeezed. We know that a headache is being described and we can perhaps imagine a similar feeling, but we cannot use metaphor to put ourselves in the exact shoes of the patient. Furthermore, physicians must take into account each patient’s personal experience with language. Is the patient one who will “fight their battle” until the end, trying many treatments to prolong or save their lives? Or is the patient someone who has accepted the magnitude of their illness? Perhaps the patient falls in the middle of the spectrum, fervently weighing the cost versus potential benefits. In either situation, the doctor must use language to appropriately convey potential treatment options to their patient. Another hazard is cultural differences in how view illness. “For Western societies the body is a discrete entity, a thing, an “it”… For members of many non-Western societies, the body is an open system…” (Kleinman, 11). This difference in how we view the body is evident amongst our “normal” afflictions. In some societies, severe mental illness places great shame not only on the suffering person, but on the family as a whole. In other places, great work is being done to destigmatize mental illness and treatment (Kleinman, 19). A holistic approach to health care that is driven by language emphasizes individuality in treatment, however the varying cultural significance of metaphors and illness creates barriers that we may not be able to cross.
  
           In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the metaphor of “going viral” is the most interesting to me. The phrase “going viral” is popular amongst internet and social media users today. We use the metaphor to describe photos, videos, news, and even people, becoming wildly popular and sensational seemingly overnight. Besides “going viral’s” seemingly innocuous positive connotations of creativity and originality, there lies the fear of internet addiction and anxieties founded by “virality” that exploit a population’s insecurities, whether it be clothing trends, body types, diet, or lifestyle. The concept of “going viral” is, in its most basic form, a paradox. It celebrates connection and creativity, yet it represents fear of contagion and illness. The age of technology allows us to personally follow along in the lives of friends, strangers, and celebrities. We have the ability to show only the best part of our lives (creativity and originality), but this “digital reality” leads to excessive comparisons of ourselves to others (fear and anxiety). A 2019 meta-analysis found that, generally, social media use and psychological distress are correlated (Vidal, et al.). Increasing social media use is a contagion spreading different meanings of individuality and personal anxieties.
  
              As we continue through the coronavirus pandemic, “going viral” will come with new baggage. The pandemic has brought with it a host of other issues to be explored through political and moral re-evaluation. Coronavirus has exacerbated America’s historical and systemic issues. Not only are we facing a health crisis, but misinformation, civil rights matters, and political unrest have come to the forefront of society. These issues have “gone viral.” Each of these issues has brought different communities together in a variety of ways, but as a country, America is very divided. Once the pandemic “ends,” will we as a society, be able to use the phrase “going viral” to describe a funny video or photo? Will we be able to use the phrase without remembering the thousands of people who died because of others’ inaction? Or the perpetuation of xenophobia and racism to uphold systemic oppression? Will we be able to use “going viral” and remember our neighbors who were scapegoated and blamed for heightening the pandemic? Currently our idea of “going viral” is shifting to embrace contagion, anxiety, and fear more fully, leaving behind the connotation of creation. Perhaps, someday in the future, we will be able to use “going viral” lightheartedly, but for now, I will be avoiding the phrase “going viral” like the plague.
  
              Illness metaphors continue to proliferate around the world, as metaphors provide the basis for understanding others and illness is omnipresent. Illness metaphors are, and should continue to be, present in the medical setting, as they can provide insight into what is best for each patient, although it is important to recognize our own limitations in understanding other’s metaphors. Illness metaphors will continue to thrive in our daily lives as we strive to understand the complexity of everyday phenomena and events, as we create connections (linguistically and personally) on the basis of sickness as a universal experience.
  
  
  Works Cited
  “1 The Meanings of Symptoms and Disorders.” The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing, and the Human Condition, by Arthur Kleinman, Basic Books, 1988, pp. 3–19.
  Vedel, Carol, et al. “A Systematic Review: the Influence of Social Media on Depression, Anxiety and Psychological Distress in Adolescents.” Taylor & Francis, 2020, www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02673843.2019.1590851?scroll=top.