The acronym ‘NET‘ (NeuroEndocrine Tumour) can be advantageous to NET advocates and organisations because it occasionally attracts readership from outside the Cancer community when links are accidentally found by ‘surfers’.

NET just also happens to be a common truncation of the word ‘Internet‘ or ‘Network‘.  The vast majority will realise the irrelevance (to them) and move on but 1 or 2 might just hang around and take a look.  Bingo – we have spread a little bit of awareness!

However, these unintended awareness opportunities are not confined to ‘NET’.  According to my blog statistics, other than my name, the most common search phrase which leads to my blog is “No Fear” – the title of one of two blogs I wrote on so-called ‘scanxiety’.  However, I suspect many surfers, base jumpers, bungee jumpers, climbers, extreme sport types and those looking for this famous clothing brand, have now learned something about Neuroendocrine Cancer 🙂  Interestingly, there’s also been a search using the phrase “humor fat german nurse syringe to butt” which found my blog site. I wonder what that was about?

Conversely, cancer advocates and patients may come across the term ‘NET’ thinking this is something associated with Neuroendocrine Tumours only to find it’s something about ‘technology’ – I know some NET patients who would be equally happy in both areas! Had he been alive, Steve Jobs (the most famous of all NET patients) would have been happy with this, most likely declaring his condition as ‘iNET‘. However, the diversion during searches is more likely to be in our direction given the extreme popularity of all things ‘NET’ in the IT world vs. the niche and esoteric subject of Neuroendocrine Tumours (NET).

This diversion happened to me when I came across an article in the UK news where the term ‘NET’ was used in conjunction with a part of the anatomy, so it immediately caught my eye.  It was a term I hadn’t heard of before so I thought it might be some new research worth ‘tweeting’ or for further analysis as a potential blog post. The article was entitled “Do you suffer from NET BRAIN?”. However, upon reading, I found it was news of research by a group of psychologists who claimed ‘tech’ (meaning IT/mobiles/tablets etc) makes one in 10 people into “anti-social and distracted narcissists” and that it was now a recognised medical disorder called NET BRAIN.

I laughed out loud (LOL), in fact, I also LMAO and was ROFL. Perhaps this was a reaction to disguise the feeling that I might already be suffering from this condition although I’m content it has nothing to do with my NET (are you confused yet?). Apparently, the main symptoms of NET Brain are ‘poor attention span’ (PAS) and a ‘fear of missing out’ (FOMO) and personally, I would also add the use of #dafthashtags and extreme use of three and four letter abbreviations (TLA and FLAS) into the mix.

What can I say … I don’t think I have PAS but I confess to sneakily checking twitter/emails/Facebook posts and my blog stats on a (shall we say) ‘frequent’ basis. I am, however, far too old for FOMO – I quite enjoy my 8 hours sleep a night (part of my new normal) and normally have no issues getting to sleep.  The article went on to say ‘people who are classed as passionate and uninhibited are three times more likely to become addicted to technology than others’. I’m passionate about stuff but I’m not that uninhibited (#tooconservative #annoyinglyanalytical).  IT and ‘social media’ (tech) are essential for my mission to spread awareness of Neuroendocrine Cancer – that rules out any narcissist tendencies. However, it does rule in what might be perceived as an addiction, but in reality I’m just a man on a mission.

One thing I did draw out of the article is that ‘NET Brain’ is definitely more prevalent and has a much higher incidence rate than NETs. However, if you actually suffer from FOMO, then you had better sign up for my blog, my newsletter and Facebook immediately. I wouldn’t want you to miss anything 🙂