Forgotten Sleep

So do it. Honestly, it can save you embarrassment. It can prevent you from unloading a lot of erroneous information of your friends and family.

Now, I’m a compassionate person, but maybe it was the years I spent living in D.C. or maybe it was the time I spent as a working reporter that made me question everything. I really mean everything. I kid you not, twice now I have been able to spot a hoax in the news stories of women who have disappeared and who are feared kidnapped. Remember that girl who was found in the field with her wrists duct taped about six years back. Yeh, the first time I heard that story — before it all came out that she’d bought the tape herself and left clues so people would find her and give her attention — I turned to my husband and said, “I’ll bet you $100 that she’s done this herself. They’ll find her, and she’ll own up to it.” Bingo — three days or so later, that’s what happened. Remember the “Runaway Bride?” When the story came out that she had disappeared while jogging just days before she was to be married, I called foul, and I was right.

I simply cannot take any story at face value. If it sounds odd, I Google it or Snopes it. Take your pick. My point is — it’s easy to find out if something you get via email is bogus. Google will even tell you how long it takes to find the real dirt on your query. Chances are, it’s less than two seconds. It’s just that simple.

That’s why I have very little patience for the people who just swallow every virus warning, amber alert or scam expose as the truth. You might think that it’s no big deal to just pass something on with there being a slight chance that it’s true. It’s digital junk mail, and I don’t want that crap filling up my Inbox, staring at me on Facebook or assaulting my eyes on Twitter. It makes me not take people seriously. It makes me think people are lazy.

More than anything, it just annoys me. I don’t like rumors, and I’m certainly not a fan of mass hysteria. So, next time you open an email that warns you about an Internet worm that makes your computer’s motherboard turn to jello or a scam about vertically-challenged people pretending to be Girl Scouts to sell cookies and pocket the money to buy aerosol cans or (God forbid) and amber alert of any kind, step back and take a breath. Don’t automatically hit “forward,” inflicting all of us with stress and headaches.

Google it.