Mixed Masala – There are dangers out there, they just have new ways of getting to us
How do you know if the person you're chatting to is even who they say they are?
Never talk to strangers and never accept sweets from someone you don’t know.
Growing up, that was always the golden rule. Even as you grew older, you were still wary of people you didn’t know, unsure of their intentions. Isn’t it ironic how life has changed?
Now it has become the norm to talk to strangers through social media apps. It’s the norm to bare our hearts and souls to people we meet online, trusting they have our best interest at heart. We believe everything they tell us and even add some extra juicy details to our lives, just to sound more interesting.
We go on dates with people we don’t know, even allowing them to pay for meals, not questioning whether they would expect anything in return.
Yes, technology has really turned around the way we look at things.
We order food online, book holidays and plane tickets online, get taxis online and even pay accounts online. In some professions, work is done solely online and the person doesn’t even have to leave the comfort of their home to do so.
Dating, though, has probably undergone the biggest transformation. Now, thanks to many matchmaking apps, we can meet people from across the country and around the world.
We can chat, swap photos and even fall in love.
But do we fall in love with the person or the idea of the person?
How do you know if the person you’re chatting to is even who they say they are? It could be someone else downloading photos, pretending to be another person.
Or, and this is arguably worse, it could be the person whose pictures you’ve received, but everything they told you is a lie. You could agree to meet, they could worm their way into your life and before you know it, they’ve made off with your car and other valuable possessions. Yes, technology has made it easier for strangers to be strangers no more.
We can now make friends worldwide and not just talk to Bob down the road, because he’s closest to us. We can meet people we may never have met before but that doesn’t mean we have to be so trusting.
It’s okay to be guarded. It’s okay to be sceptical and it’s okay to say no or delete people who don’t add value to our lives. The bad people no longer have to drive in panel vans with the words ‘free sweets’ on the side to trick us, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there anymore. They just have found a new vehicle to use and it’s called technology.
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