Thursday, March 15, 2012

Why Are There More Security Issues With Each Passing Day?

Asks a LinkedIn peer who lives and works in Pakistan...


I won't presume to speak to the realities on the ground in Pakistan, but here in the States I wonder sometimes whether there really are more security problems, or are we simply being told about issues we were never told of before?

The voracious 24 hour news cycle and the explosion of social media present stories – large, small, and obscure - to us with such urgency that it's easy to imagine things are worse.


I find that not watching news programming commercial television or listening to commercial radio drive time talk shows helps a lot.


When we look at the Google news aggregator there may be thousands of reports on a single topic but almost of them are based on the same wire service story.


When selecting the form and quantity of social media to consume we should be careful not to choose sources and communities with which we always agree.


Otherwise we risk being led into an echo chamber where group think and confirmation bias reinforce our human tendency toward cultural cognition of risk which create a sense of dread that is deeper than the facts call for.