From Claire O’Connell:

I have been in rather grumpy form the last few days.

Something has been bothering me enormously, and when I went to research it on the Internet I found a swathe of sites scaremongering and delivering half-truths and assumptions.

When I spoke to people who actually know about the issue, I was somewhat reassured. But even at that, looking into it has left me baffled as to how things we take for granted as safe are regulated (or not).

I guess recently my faith in many things has been undermined. Yeah sure I could write an article about it, but I won’t for now. I’m too angry about it to be objective, so I’d only be adding to the fear factor that already abounds.

It also got me thinking about the online environment in general. I was always an e-mail junkie, even back in the early days. I still am. With email it’s personal, it’s private, it’s generally invited.

But ever since getting more into the world of blogs and social media sites (particularly the ones where your entries are visible to all) it has flagged to me a murky side of interaction that, if I let it, could undermine my usual assumption that people are good at heart.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of online contributors whose opinions I appreciate and respect (even if I don’t agree with them all).

But why do some people feel the anonymous and removed nature of talking to people through a keyboard gives them free reign to be rude or spread unverified information like manure for people’s deepest fears?

Maybe some of those people would do the same face to face. In which case I’d walk away.

But instead I just have to shut down and hope real life is better.

This post first appeared on Claire O’Connell’s blog

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