Lydia Schoch

I started badgering my parents to sign up for internet service in the mid 1990s. In early 1999 they finally gave in. 😉 At the time there was a great deal of conversation about the dangers of the Internet. People worried that they’d be taken advantage of online through Internet People ™ who lied about who they really were or who were running scams. We were cautioned against meeting these folks or giving them too much personal information.

The Truth

What is insanely fascinating about this is that for many crimes – sexual assault and murder to name a few-  the average person is far more likely to be hurt by someone they know than a stranger. Embezzlement by definition happens within personal or professional relationships. Even 43% of identity thefts are thought to be committed by someone the victim knew.

These things happen in every community. No one is immune to becoming the victim of violence or theft. Yes, there are online scammers out there. Yes, caution is a good thing. From the statistics (and depending on the crime), though, we are as if not more likely to be harmed by people we know.

Question: Why is there so much focus on crimes committed by strangers? Shouldn’t there be as many, if not more, conversations about how to avoid or mitigate the harm done in person?

Internet People

When I first leapt online I was wary of sharing my real name or location. Pseudonyms and purposefully vague references to where I lived were the way to go.

A funny thing happened in the last decade-ish, though. Some of these Internet People ™ became longtime friends. When I’m frustrated, afraid, lonely, happy or need advice they’re only an email or phone call away. I’m as close to many of them as I am to those I see in person far more often.

In my experience the fear of online friendships often comes from the idea that there’s only one way to do it. Either you have local friends or you have Internet People ™ who live states, provinces, countries away. There seems to be little sense of how much gray area there is between the two or how the medium matters less than what we do for one another.

I wonder if part of this is a cultural or generational difference. People who grew up with BBSing or the Internet seem to be more comfortable with the social aspects than those who were introduced to it later. (There are many exceptions to this, of course! They’re  just general group trends I’ve noticed.)

These are my fragmented thoughts about the communities that are forming and have formed online. What do you see?

Over the last year or so I’ve gradually stopped reading, listening to and watching the news on purpose. (That is, I don’t seek out news stories but if an informative article is shared by a friend or posted on a favourite blog I very well may read it.)  Here are some reasons why you should do the same:

1. The vast majority of news providers put a sensational spin on the stories they report whether it is by taking a quote out of context, injecting controversy into even the most mild of disagreements or completely misrepresenting the latest scientific research.
2. Sound-bite debates. Not every debate can or should be framed as one extreme viewpoint arguing loudly with the other. Not only is there a planet’s worth of opinions on any topic (only a minority of which are actually extremist), most people are perfectly capable of embracing the grey in life. Us vs. Them ™ may make for an exciting news story but it doesn’t reflect the vast majority of human relationships.
3. A steady diet of worst-case scenarios ignites fear. If most of what you hear about the world are stories about murder, rape, kidnapping, war, starvation, disease and deadly household products it becomes so easy to assume that this is what awaits you ever time you step outdoors.  There are people in my life who live in fear in part because they believe that what is on the news is an accurate reflection of reality.
4. There’s no such thing as an unbiased journalist or news group. If you hear someone claim to be just reporting the facts (unless they are, in fact, just rattling off a list of numbers without any exposition!) take a hard look at what they’re saying. Bias isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though. As humans we will always be constrained by our perspective in life. The trick is to acknowledge it and to gather ideas from as many other people as possible. Listening to one news source can hamper this…especially if your beliefs match up well enough that they never challenge your assumptions.
5. Also consider the problem of manufactured controversy. In an effort to appear unbiased news organizations often try to show every side to an issue…even when 99% of the experts on that topic agree. Climate change is an excellent example of this. Despite what the US news may report, there is a consensus on this topic. Does that mean that we will never find new information that alters what we believe to be true? Of course not! But the “controversy” on this topic exists only to bring higher ratings on the news and in a few radical groups. The actual data that has been gathered so far tells a far different story.

How Do You Know What’s Happening, Then?

Most often I hear about what is going in the world from friends and family or come across an article or post about that specific event while reading my RSS feed. I’m not dogmatic about avoiding any whisper of local or worldwide news. One story isn’t going to make my head explode (I hope. 😉 ) It just isn’t something I intentionally seek out.

Eight or nine years ago Dad spotted a leather jacket at our local secondhand store that looked like it might be my size. As soon as I arrived home from class he told me about it. I’d been looking for a new jacket for some time and hadn’t found anything I liked yet so I drove over to the shop sure that someone else had bought it.

They hadn’t.

It was hanging right where Dad had last seen it. At first glance I wasn’t sure if I liked it; the color was a little more auburn than I had imagined would be my next jacket. I tried it on anyway. It was a perfect fit.

I wore that jacket everywhere.  It wrapped around me as I walked to my car late at night after work and hung over the back of my chair through countless hours of studying at the library. I wore it the first time I met Drew and took it off just minutes before meeting my newborn nephew four winters ago.

A Few Years Ago

The lining in it began to fall apart. That was ok, though, as I was the only person who ever saw it. I also wasn’t sure how easy it would be to replace the lining as the inside of the coat was falling apart almost as quickly as the lining itself.

When the zipper started to stick I quickly learned to hold the bottom stop and pull tab just so. At the right angle it still worked ok.

Last spring I noticed a series of holes that had developed on the jacket. I planned to have them fixed until I realized that some sections of my jacket were more air than coat. Reluctantly I threw it away just before we moved out here.

Nostalgia

Normally I’m not a sentimental person. Most stuffs exist for almost wholly practical reasons in my mind. The only exceptions to this are a couple of boxes of keepsakes: photo albums, my wedding dress, a few childhood outfits and some other small, miscellaneous items. Yet there was something bittersweet about throwing that jacket out. So much of my life – good, bad and mundane – passed while I wore it.

Over the last few days I’ve been feeling nostalgic about the past in general. Part of this can be explained by the message boards at The Ooze coming back. The beta test of the boards is full of Ooze old-timers. I’ve missed talking with so many of them. The years when I was most active there were personally difficult for a variety of reasons but we had such stimulating conversations on the boards. I don’t want to go back to the hard times but I do miss the positive stuff!

If only there could be one without the other.

Respond

What do you do when you’re feeling nostalgic?