This morning over breakfast M and I were discussing our childhoods and how different things are today. I was reminiscing about when my friends and I used to meet up in the morning and set out on our bikes, riding around for hours and hours sometimes returning home for lunch, sometimes not until dinner.
Twenty (gasp) plus years later, I can still remember all of the good times we had riding around the neighborhood, through the woods and anywhere else we could manage to maneuver our trusty Schwinn's.
Flash forward to 2007. Now, I see kids riding their bikes up and down their driveways. Lame!! I wonder what they would think about a time when you didn't have to worry about perverts, kidnapping and all of the other calamities waiting around every corner.
I've often wondered whether society was just more reckless back then, or are the risks actually more real now? Back in the 80's information was available in limited doses. You could read the newspaper or watch the local news. Things that were going on in Smalltown, Iowa probably weren't being reported in Tinyville, Pennsylvania and vice versa. Now, just hop on the computer and there's more news than one person could possibly read.
For example, would a woman my age walking through a parking lot alone in 1983 be as paranoid and hyper-aware as I am in 2007? Did she have to be? Do I have to be?
In his book The Lexus and The Olive Tree Thomas L. Friedman talks about globalization and the fact that in the last few decades, the world has become smaller thanks to the democratization of technology, finance and information. Friedman is applying the globalization concept to business, but it definitely translates into regular everyday life.
Back in the day, if a woman was abducted in a mall parking lot in Minnesota, would it really make that much news in New York? And if it did, did Minnesota seem so far and distant that it didn't rattle people that much? Now, Minnesota seems like it's just the next town over. Hell, when Madeline McCann was kidnapped (allegedly) in Portugal, it rattled parents all over the world just as it would have if she'd been taken from the next door neighbor's front porch.
Are we just more aware of the risks today because no place is really a "far off land" anymore? Or are people becoming more sinister and evil? Am I really more likely to be attacked in the mall parking lot today? Or do I just read more stories on CNN.com and get more emails warning me about the tricks of the rapist trade?
I would hope it's just that we're all just more aware, because the idea that the human race has deteriorated that much in the last thirty years is a really crappy thought!
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1 comment:
In a related topic, I've discussed the prevalence of serial killers with some of my epidemiology friends. Apparently the theory is that there is some baseline percentage of the population that fits the profile for a serial killer. So, with an increase in population, there is an increase in these people. And of course, when you tie that into the technology advances that you mention, it seems we have child molesters, serial killers, and other creepy freaks in our backyard every single day!
Do we need to worry about being abducted and having to put the lotion in the basket when we walk across the parking lot after work? Probably not. Should we worry about being mugged or raped? Maybe. Based on the few muggings, shootings, and knifing, that have occurred on our campus in the 2.5 years I've been here, I always err on the side of caution and try not to tempt fate.
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