eHealth literacy is defined as “the ability to seek, find, understand and appraise health information from electronic sources and apply knowledge gained to addressing or solving a health problem.”[16][17] According to this definition, eHealth literacy encompasses six types of literacy: traditional (literacy and numeracy), information, media, health, computer, and scientific. Of these, media and computer literacies are unique to the Internet context, with eHealth media literacy being the awareness of media bias or perspective, the ability to discern both explicit and implicit meaning from media messages, and to derive meaning from media messages. The literature includes other definitions of perceived media capability or efficacy, but these were not specific to health information on the Internet.[18] Having the composite skills of eHealth literacy allows health consumers to achieve positive outcomes from using the Internet for health purposes. eHealth literacy has the potential to both protect consumers from harm and empower them to fully participate in informed health-related decision making.[17] People with high levels of eHealth literacy are also more aware of the risk of encountering unreliable information on the Internet[19] On the other hand, the extension of digital resources to the health domain in the form of eHealth literacy can also create new gaps between health consumers.[18] eHealth literacy hinges not on the mere access to technology, but rather on the skill to apply the accessed knowledge.[16]
