Voice of the Mid-Columbia | Kennewick, Pasco and Richland, Wash. |
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closeWell, here's another one we can probably blame on the media.
It turns out, according to British researchers at King's College in London, that 40 percent of us are likely to have exaggerated thoughts about perfect strangers or others being "out to get us" at one time or another.
And those strangers are, it turns out, perfect.
Using virtual reality headsets, the King's College researchers led participants through computer-generated London subway setting, filled with imitation people programmed to be neutral.
The study's participants then reacted to these neutral avatars as they looked around the subway car.
Turns out 4 in 10 thought they saw something sinister in their fellow passengers.
"People walk around with odd thoughts all the time," David Penn, a professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina, told The Associated Press.
"The question is if that translates into real behavior."
King's College says the study found that:
* More than 40 percent of people regularly worry that negative comments are being made about them.
* 27 percent think people deliberately try to irritate them.
* 20 percent worry about being observed or followed.
* 10 percent think someone has it in for them.
* 5 percent worry that there's a conspiracy to harm them.
According to the AP, surveys of several thousands of people in Britain, the United States and elsewhere have found that rates of paranoia are slowly rising.
A British survey found 21 percent of people thought there had been times when others were acting against them, and another survey of 1,000 adults in New York found that 11 percent thought other people were following or spying on them.
Where are these nutty ideas coming from?
Probably from the same place as charity and tragedy fatigue come from.
Our society (and, apparently, England's) is saturated in scary events.
Bombs, bullets, knives and explosions have replaced plot in countless American movies.
Then there is truTV, the ubiquitous car chases, the mass-media stakeouts of the homes, restaurants, gyms and nightclubs of celebrities in trouble.
Real murders are mined for their "entertainment" value.
But -- and here comes a mea not so culpa -- we all watch, and read and listen to the details. (Then we write letters to our local newspaper griping about the coverage after we've devoured every word of it.)
After a single 24-hour cycle of watching, reading and hearing about the multiple evils being reported constantly, it seems anybody who isn't paranoid is probably crazy.
Editorials are the consensus of the Tri-City Herald editorial board.
Editorial board members are Rufus Friday, publisher; Chris Sivula, editorial page editor; Ken Robertson, executive editor; Matt Taylor, contributing editor; Lori Lancaster, editorial writer; Shelly Norman, editorial writer and Jack Briggs, retired publisher
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