An interesting way the media can affect us
My flatmate, Derek, often talks about how fear of something is built up through the media. His favourite example (being a computer geek) is using your credit card online. A lot of people are far more afraid of this than they need to be. Sure, there's always a risk but there are plenty of things you can do to limit your chances of having your credit card number stolen. He likes to point out that those same people will happily give their credit card number over the phone to someone - even though they don't know who the person is, just what company they are from.
He's right. When I worked at the movies it wasn't uncommon to have people call up and want to book tickets with their credit card over the phone. They wanted this service because they didn't want to put their credit card online. Kinda silly really. I think, in that case, putting the credit card number online was far safer. We had a lot of staff theft, but never had a case of someones credit card number being stolen online. (our staff theft was just general, no credit card theft that I know about.) But it's the online credit card fraud the media make a big deal over, so that's what people are scared of.
Where is this all going? Good question. Last night my nephew stayed over. I set him up with my sleeping bag on the (very comfortable) couch and went to bed myself. He's slept on that couch before and all has been fine. But last night he got a bit scared and came into my room to tell me about it. I asked him if he wanted to sleep in my bed and he said he did. Not a problem. I thought nothing more of it and we went to sleep.
This morning I was thinking about it and, just for a second, suddenly wondered if it had been entirely appropriate to let him sleep in my bed. I quickly pushed the thought aside. I'm his auntie, he was scared, there's nothing inappropriate about it. But just for that one second the media, and their constant onslaughts of telling us that paedophiles are rampant in the world, made me think someone could misconstrue the completely innocent action of me trying to comfort my nephew.
I found it interesting that I thought, even for a second, about it. It shows that the media certainly can make us scared of our own shadows. share this: facebook
He's right. When I worked at the movies it wasn't uncommon to have people call up and want to book tickets with their credit card over the phone. They wanted this service because they didn't want to put their credit card online. Kinda silly really. I think, in that case, putting the credit card number online was far safer. We had a lot of staff theft, but never had a case of someones credit card number being stolen online. (our staff theft was just general, no credit card theft that I know about.) But it's the online credit card fraud the media make a big deal over, so that's what people are scared of.
Where is this all going? Good question. Last night my nephew stayed over. I set him up with my sleeping bag on the (very comfortable) couch and went to bed myself. He's slept on that couch before and all has been fine. But last night he got a bit scared and came into my room to tell me about it. I asked him if he wanted to sleep in my bed and he said he did. Not a problem. I thought nothing more of it and we went to sleep.
This morning I was thinking about it and, just for a second, suddenly wondered if it had been entirely appropriate to let him sleep in my bed. I quickly pushed the thought aside. I'm his auntie, he was scared, there's nothing inappropriate about it. But just for that one second the media, and their constant onslaughts of telling us that paedophiles are rampant in the world, made me think someone could misconstrue the completely innocent action of me trying to comfort my nephew.
I found it interesting that I thought, even for a second, about it. It shows that the media certainly can make us scared of our own shadows. share this: facebook
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on Tuesday, July 08, 2008 at 9:32 PM.
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