Terry Young

SLM 521

Internet Hoaxes,
Myths, and
Urban Legends

        A lot of the emails that I receive on a daily basis are tied to some type of hoax, myth, or legend. They are funny, which it is intended to be. I can recognize that they are a fraud because they usually direct me to “pass it on, or else . . .” The myths that irritate me are the ones that are chain letters. They typically tell you a story about some unfortunate happening. You end up feeling bad for the individual. Then it tells you to send the letter to “as many people” as you know or you’ll end up with some severe consequence. I have followed the advice given, calculated my results, sent the email to twenty plus people, etc. to many of these types of emails. Yet, nothing has happened to me either way. I have no extra wealth for completing the task. Nor did I die last week because I failed to forward the email. This leads me to believe that the stories themselves aren’t even true.
        We need to be careful when we view information on the Internet. It may look real, sound real, and come from a legitimate source, but there may still be some falsehood to it. For example, the link http://www.cdc.gov/hoax_rumors.htm will take you to a rumor that there was a recall on "contaminated" flu vaccines. Fortunately, this did not happen. Thank goodness because I just got my shot yesterday! Like I mentioned earlier, I find humor in most of these emails. However, messages like the “Flu Vaccine” are disgustingly, ignorant. To safeguard students and all people for that matter, we need to consider the source. If we receive a message that excites us, scares us, or makes us feel uncomfortable in some way, we need to investigate the topic more, instead of accepting every word that we read. I now take most of these emails with a grain of salt. If it’s something that I’m interested in, I’ll research it more.