Let me begin by saying that Facebook’s Crisis Response pages do a lot of good. They are a locus for gifts and proposals of improve. But that said, for the passion of humanity, when something bad happens, please stop commemorating yourself Safe on Facebook.
They don’t mean to prey on our feelings. They mean to assuage them. But all they do is strengthening the incorrect notion that the world is a terrifying situate where erratic frightful things happen often; they deteriorate the problem by attempting to treat the symptom.
Consider, for example,” The Tornado in Ottawa, Ontario and Gatineau, Quebec, Canada” several months ago. As a former Ottawa resident I have numerous Facebook very good friends. Todd and Jennifer marked themselves safe; but what about Joe? Stefan? Stephane? What happened to them ? i>
Yeah, they’re fine, thanks, because that region has a population of 1.3 million, and while it is a dishonor that six of them were hospitalized as a result of that tornado( which affected Canada frequently) when you do the math you immediately realize that that is equal to one out of every 216,000 beings. If a single person were hospitalized of the consequences of an incident in a single city of 216,000, would Facebook call on every occupant of that city to distinguish themselves safe?
I mean, if Facebook did do that, why, your feed would be a nonstop spate of Crises from which people are Stigmatized Safe. The world would seem like a cauldron of horrors, and any unknown much too spooky to go into, full of things which might mischief you and your friends and family. You would be frightened of other targets, and maybe eventually, almost logically, by increase, people from other locates, too.
Our intelligences are well known to weigh our suspicions based in part on how unforgettable the objective is rather than how likely they are. So we obsess more about lucid affairs than actually fearsome ones. Would Facebook call on New Yorkers to commemorate themselves safe if a terrorist attack killed 15 people in a hectic subway station? Of track they are able to. It’s not even a question, is it.
But 15 is fewer than the increasing numbers of New Yorkers killed in traffic every single month. Is Facebook announcing on New Yorkers to celebrate themselves as “Safe From Cars” every month? Of track not. That’s a laughter idea. But the risk of that is greater than the risk of any rendered New Yorker being killed in that hypothetical terror attack.
And- here’s the key- when Facebook asks you to symbol yourself safe, and reports that you’re safe to all your Facebook love, it is likely to reduce some specific feeling in the short term, but it done likewise at the cost of increasing generalized suspicion — about the nations of the world and everything in it — in the long term.
There are of course some dilemmas so unpleasant, so massive, so widespread, that this no longer exerts; where the risk to any individual is indeed much higher than, say, the annual hazard of dying in a gondola accident. If Facebook reduced its calls to recognize yourself safe to such actual junctures, then nothing of the above would be implemented. Let’s hope that one day they ratchet down their anxiety-inducing algorithm and do exactly that.
