Deborah Cohen: Bad Influence
About this episode
Deborah Cohen discusses her book on how the internet and social media have transformed health information and trust in traditional institutions.
Award-winning medical journalist Deborah Cohen joins the Plutopia News Network to discuss her book Bad Influence: How the Internet Hijacked Our Health. Deborah examines how social media algorithms, influencers, podcasts, wellness brands, and AI tools have transformed the way people find and evaluate health information. She argues that online platforms reward certainty, emotion, and personal storytelling over scientific nuance, while commercial incentives increasingly shape what health advice reaches the public. The conversation explores the erosion of trust in traditional institutions, the rise of health influencers and wellness marketing, the promises and pitfalls of patient empowerment, the quantified-self movement, GLP-1 drugs, and the growing role of AI in medicine. Throughout, Cohen emphasizes the challenge of navigating a digital health ecosystem where expertise competes with attention, commercial interests, and algorithmic amplification, leaving patients to determine whom—and what—to trust. Deborah Cohen: Obviously, you want to sell newspapers — if you’re a mainstream media, you want to get eyeballs on the screens. But this is all monetized on social media. So…
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