I did a similar post a while back here

But this is from a slightly different angle.

Something came up in a discussion in class today, and that was that things are less safe nowadays then they where 20 years ago.  This is a belief a lot of people have... except it's completely false.

Crime stats have been on a steady decline for over 2 decades now, and a pretty steep one at that.

We've seen entire campaigns around "Stranger Danger", yet stranger abductions are extremely rare. "Police statistics show 25 children of the 46,718 reported missing in 2011 listed as "abducted by stranger."  More people get hit by lightning in a year then abducted by strangers...

So what gives?

The big difference isn't that crime has gone up, but our awareness of it has gone up.

Thanks to social media when an event happens it spreads fast and far.  What would have once generated a single article in a paper can now generate thousands and thousands of shares, likes, reposts and get people more emotionally involved then before.

It's hard to say whether or not it is a good thing or a bad thing, as the ability of stories to go viral and spread fast has resulted in people being found and saved.  But it can skew our perspective on the frequency of these events.

So here is my challenge, let's make a effort to share the good things as well.  Negative and fear inducing stories spread far faster then stories of a positive nature.  Balance it out, let's celebrate the > 99% of people that are good people, doing good things.

We are the safest we have been in half a century.  We are more connected to people then ever before.  We have access to more information then ever before.

Let's spread help and positive messages, not just the negative and fear based ones :)