Classification of Health Resource Bookmark
A health-related article is bookmarked for later reading. Later does not arrive on a schedule. The bookmark collection grows.
Terms and Conditions Governing Health Resource Bookmark Classification Notice and Governing Rules
Section 1: Scope
These terms govern the creation and maintenance of a browser bookmark folder, note application folder, or read-later application folder containing health-related articles, studies, symptom guides, wellness recommendations, and similar material that has been saved for future reference and has not been read since being saved.
By saving more than seven health-related bookmarks without reading any of them, you accept these terms.
Section 2: The Observation
A folder exists. It contains thirty-one items. It was created in March 2020. The oldest bookmark is an article about sleep quality from 2019 that was migrated from a previous device. The most recent bookmark was saved four days ago.
The folder has been opened twice. Both times, the person who opened it closed it again without reading anything.
Section 3: The Classification
Health resource bookmarking is the practice of saving medical or wellness content to a folder with the belief that the folder constitutes a resource library, when it constitutes an unread folder. The distinction is: a resource library contains material that can be retrieved and applied. An unread folder contains material that is available in principle and inaccessible in practice.
The bookmarks represent an intention to be informed. They do not represent being informed.
Section 4: The Alarm
The alarm is measured: the bookmarks are not dangerous. The content saved is, in many cases, reputable and relevant. A person who reads even six of the thirty-one items would likely be more informed than before reading them. This has not happened.
The alarm concerns the gap between intention and outcome, specifically that the gap is invisible from inside the system. The person with thirty-one bookmarks believes, in a diffuse way, that they have access to health information. This belief is technically correct and practically false.
Section 5: Categories Within the Folder
The folder contains: four articles on sleep, seven on nutrition, two on exercise, nine on pandemic-related health, three on mental health, one on hydration that has been saved from three different sources, and five that cannot be categorized from their titles alone without opening them.
Six items are from paywalled publications. The person does not have subscriptions to those publications. The articles cannot be read. They remain in the folder.
Section 6: The Contradiction
The practice of bookmarking replaces the practice of reading. This is not an accident; it is the mechanism by which bookmarking provides relief from the anxiety of encountering a relevant health article without providing the work of reading it. The anxiety of not being informed is resolved by saving the article. The article is saved. The anxiety is resolved. The article is not read.
Section 7: Limitation
These terms do not apply to bookmarks that have been read in full within forty-eight hours of saving. Three such bookmarks exist in the folder. They are not the concern.