We think that the meaning of age can be divided into two aspects: the meaning in social interaction and the meaning in health care. In the contexts of social life, age is a relatively sensitive topic. Coupland et al. (1989) mentioned in their study about the communication pattern of elderly people that age-disclosure has different implications in every stage of human life. Elderly people tend to spontaneously mention their own age within social conversation with others: e.g., ‘I haven’t been too well … because … of course I’m getting on now I’ll be eighty next year’ (p.136). And children may be asked about their age by relatives as a way to follow their growth and development: e.g., Taiwanese people tend to ask little kids ‘Little boy, how old are you?’ and ‘Little girl, in what grade are you in?’ However, the topic related to age is almost a taboo for young and middle-aged adults because of some expectation and negative images. We think that young adults are normally expected to depart from the social role of growing up and being brought up and enter the social role of giving birth and raising children. They may experience certain pressure if they cannot reach these social expectations in accordance with their age, such as still being single when they have reached a certain marriageable age.
The social pressure middle-aged adults may face is the negative stereotypes associated with entering old age, such as frailty and incompetence (Coupland et al. 1989:130).
Therefore, only the age of elderly people and children can normally be the topic of social interaction because they belong to the ones being brought up and do not have to bear the pressure and expectation of arriving at certain achievements. The patient members in KDD cancer board are young adults, but as high as 84% of them chose to disclose their age
spontaneously. We have mentioned earlier that one member in the board for an idol group directly mentioned the embarrassment of telling one’s age (i.e. ‘哎，這真讓人難回答，因 為會說出年齡吶（T__T)/oh, it is really hard to answer because age will be revealed
（T__T)’) when being asked to share the length of time he/she has liked the group. As shown by this utterance, the possibility of revealing one's age is the reason why this is a question that is hard to be answered, and it further proves the common unwillingness to disclose one’s age in social interaction. Then, why do patient members in KDD cancer board spontaneously disclosure their age? We think the purpose of their age-disclosure is not for its meaning in social interaction but for its second meaning: meaning in health care.
In the context of health care, age is highly correlated with disease. In writing medical case reports, a patient’s age and gender are two items which must be included, such as,
‘32-year-old male patient,’ because they are important factors to be considered for diagnosis and treatment. DeBakey and DeBakey (1983:361) pointed out that medical case reports should provide identification for every case, such as patient’s age, gender, race and occupation. Even though age and gender are not actually needed when the report is written, those who read the report later may discover unnoticed but important information according to its identification. DeBakey and DeBakey (1983:360) also pointed out that recording a patient’s age when some symptoms appear can provide readers with temporal a reference to infer the development of a patient’s condition. Their statements directly prove the close correlation between a patient’s age and a patient’s physical condition. Cohen (2006: 1889) also mentioned that it is a must to clearly write out a patient’s demographics, such as, age and gender.
KDD cancer board does not have a regulated form for self-introduction posting, but 84% of the patient members spontaneously mentioned their age at posting or age at cancer diagnosis. This phenomenon shows that even though they are not medical professionals,
intuitively, they are aware of the salient correlation between a patient’s age and disease.
Therefore, even though age may be a taboo topic in social interaction in terms of the age group they belong to, most of the patient members nevertheless mentioned their age, which is a sensitive but important piece of information in the interaction within the cancer board.
That is, the meaning of age in health care overrides the sensitivity of personal privacy.
Moreover, people tend to think that getting cancer diagnosis implies the meaning of death, and in general, we ask the age of the deceased when we know that someone has died. If the deceased was already 90 years old, we may think that ‘there is no pity in dying a natural death at 90 years old’, but if the deceased was only 60 years old, we may think that ‘it is a pity.’ Therefore, we argue that the high correlation between getting cancer, death, and age can account for patient members’ spontaneous age-disclosure.
We have mentioned earlier that those non-patient members who posted self-introductions in KDD cancer board also belong to the age group of 20 to 29. However, only 24% of the non-patient members spontaneously mention their age. This phenomenon further proves that because non-patient members are not cancer patients themselves, their age is less significant in the context of health care. The main purpose for them to post self-introduction in cancer board is to be acquainted with other non-patient members and to achieve knowledge exchange and social interaction, so they seldom spontaneously mentioned their own age in social interaction, just like young adults in general. Thus it can be seen that it is uncommon to spontaneously mention one’s own age or ask another’s age in the young adults’ social interaction. However, what is the purpose for those small numbers of non-patient members in spontaneously mentioning their own age? We argue that the purpose of those small numbers of non-patient members (24%) as well as the majority of the patient members who spontaneously mentioned their age (84%) is to convey their resistance to their cancer diagnosis and their relatives and friends’ cancer
diagnosis. This argument is to be discussed in 5.2.