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Health
(n.)
The conviction that something is wrong with you, sustained by the steady drip of personal health data that offers just enough detail to confirm your anxiety.
The first ten minutes of his physical were spent calming his datachondria as the nurse talked him down from his dashboard.
Does it ring true?
From the future, or already here?
From data and hypochondria. The old hypochondriac feared illness without evidence; the datachondriac is supplied with a near-infinite abundance of it, each reading ambiguous enough to validate the worry it created.
Future Words: A Non-Obvious Glossary of Terms That Don’t Exist (But Soon Will) collects all 100, each with its example sentence and coinage notes, from the bestselling authors of The Future Normal. Hardcover, October 20, 2026.