Questionable Media Perspective
By Daniel Miessler on March 30th, 2005: Tagged as Culture | Politics | Rants
According to CNN and a number of other reports I’ve seen recently, the world is becoming more and more safe as time goes on. I have numerous reports describe how drug use is going down, teen pregnancy is on the decline, and something called “violent crime” is at an all-time low.
I’m a bit confused about these reports.
Is it just me or is anyone else of the opinion that there’s never been a more dangerous environment for raising children? Did it used to be more important that we lock our doors at night — and not so much now? Did it used to be more dangerous to have your kids play outside — and not so much now? How are people coming up with this crap?
I mean, I’m familiar with the concept of media slant and perspecitve bias based on exposure to slanted input, but can someone honestly make the argument to me that violence against children, teen pregnancy, high-school drop-out rates are all lower than they were 20 years ago? Seriously…
Those pushing this idiocy are using statistics to generate false truths, which are then pushed out to the masses in some lame PR campaign to prove we’re better off than the news says we are. I find it disturbing, and I’m curious as to why would want to push such ideas.
I think I’ve found the media spin you’re looking for…
The study in the linked article talks about factors for a certain age group — adolescents and teens. It doesn’t say that the crime, poverty, etc is going down as a whole, just within this age group.
I think maybe in the bigger picture, the world is still going to hell in a handbasket, it’s just that the offenders and victims are older.
OR
Maybe as a new generation rises to adulthood, they are recognizing the errors of their ways and raising their children differently.
OR
Maybe our generation is starting to grow up, out of the somewhat sheltered environment of College dorm life and into “real life”, and we see the world as a more violent place — hence the general opinion we have that crime and poverty are on the rise.
Hell, I don’t know. It’s just my $0.02.
Comment by nova20 — 3/30/2005 @ 11:21 pm
I am fine by the way… Well I think its hard to get a good perspective on things when you watch US media… its constantly slapping you with how bad everything is.. Since I have been here in Korea.. for one I dont have time to pay attention to the US news much and its surprising safe here. Don’t really hear of crime half as often as you do in the states and the crimes you do hear about are things like a company exploited another company over something… I heard of two murder cases since I have been in Korea .. its been almost a year now .. If I was in Georgia I would have heard of 10 shootings in just a week.. Not that Korea is the safest place on earth.. the overly conservative society makes some of the men here sexual freaks so.. there is often cases of old men flashing young school girls or taxi drivers raping drunk female passengers. All in all .. I feel safer here 95% of the time as opposed to what I felt in a small town in Georgia.
Comment by Charlie — 3/31/2005 @ 8:28 pm
I think it’s all a ploy to get really stupid people to procreate. Just kidding. But, seriously, I don’t understand how anyone can report such things. I would love to have children, but what I see in the world today makes me feel that it would be abusive to bring children into the world. It’s no longer my selfishness. But, I’m still on the fence with that.
Comment by Marisol — 4/6/2005 @ 11:03 pm