YouTube apparently has even more uses than I suspected:
A first for me. I often look up patients new to the MH system on the web to see what I can learn about them. The paranoid, angry, psychotic young woman we admitted this morning posted several videos of herself on YouTube two weeks ago. I don't know when the videos were actually made, however. She was friendly and laughing then, except the last two have an eerie edge.
Things like this are going to become more common, and more helpful to us. I hope they are helpful to her as well.
Does this mean in the future my doctors will pour through my twitters and facebook updates, looking for possible symptoms?
Only if they care...
Do you have your doctors as your friends on Facebook? If you have your settings right, only friends are supposed to be able to see that stuff. I don't know anything about Twitter.
I don't see what the problem would be with it, as long as your doctor didn't gain access to anything he or she wasn't supposed to be able to see. Multiple measures are useful, and if your videos on Youtube or your Facebook provided more information about, say, a pattern of manic or depressive behavior or a set of symptoms, it could be beneficial.
More likely they'll pore through (or over) them, especially if they're looking for signs of dyslexia, like 'pour through'.
Pair that up with your recent post about finding patterns in random data, and we'll really kick the Internet Hypochondria up a notch.
Why would they bother.
Your blog has already vouched for you, or condemned you, depending on their politics, culinary tastes, and views on kinky sex.