when internet friends die. do you ever find out?

Over the years we have become more and more reliant on the internet in our day-to-day lives.  We use it for shopping/banking/keeping in contact with friends.  We read the news, watch videos, and keep up with the gossip on our favourite celebrities.  

But more and more we are using the internet to make the acquaintance of people we otherwise would never have met, through chat sites, message forums and social networking sites.  As such we are able to form friendships with people beyond our previously narrower social circle.

Sometimes those friendships go on to develop into more real life friendships.  I know people who have met their partners/husbands through the internet, either on chat sites or on dating websites designed specifically for the purpose.  I have personally met people who I originally met on the internet and who are now close friends of mine. 

But sometimes due to circumstances and/or often distance it is just not possible to physically meet up with people we meet online.  And as such I guess we now find ourselves in a position where friendships are divided into two groups – our physical friends, and our internet friends.

And this is where I find myself wondering about whether having internet friend’s makes us possibly more separated.  After all, if your means of communication with someone you’ve only met on the internet are limited to emails, online chat and possibly phone calls, it is, in fact, extremely easy to obliterate those people from your life, or in fact to be obliterated from theirs.  All you have to do is switch off the computer after all, and then they’re gone.

Which leads me to something I have wondered about a few times, but which has come up more specifically for me recently, what happens when one of your internet friends dies?  Or indeed, what would happen if you died – would someone close to you know to inform your internet friends?  Indeed, would someone close to you even know who your internet friends were? 

If one of your internet friends died, they would just disappear from your screen, never to be seen or heard of again, and it’s entirely possible that you would never even know they had died.  After all it’s not a natural conclusion to come to, unless you had reason to believe that death was a possibility. 

If I died I’m not entirely sure I would want someone close to me to announce it on twitter, or on any of the websites I frequent, but equally I do wonder if those people I have formed friendships with through the internet would ever come to learn of my demise, or whether they would in fact just decide I had left internet life for now and would eventually be back, only to forget about me in time when I didn’t return. 

I think the internet is a great resource for befriending people, but I do wonder as to whether those friendships are caught in the here and now, and are volatile in the sense that we can essentially turn them on and off with the flick of a switch, and that if life takes that ability out of our hands, whether the friendships we have formed through the internet in fact are considered worthy of the same consideration in terms of informing those friends that we have perhaps passed on.

when the public grieve for dead celebrities

Last week British entertainer Jimmy Savile died.  He was well known for the TV programme Jim’ll fix it, as well as for the vast amount of charity work he did.  Next week, his coffin will be on display in a Leeds hotel, in order that mourners may pay their last respects before the funeral which will be held the next day.  No doubt hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of people will file past the coffin in order to pay their last respects, even though most of those doing so will never have met him in person.

The public mourning of dead celebrities and public figures is something which seems to have become more prevalent in the past few years.  Perhaps the most memorable was the public grief which was expressed over the death of Diana Princess of Wales, after she was killed in a car crash in 1997.  Mourners went to Kensington Palace to lay flowers, and several books of condolence were filled with signatures.  People travelled from abroad for the funeral, even though they had never met her. 

While the public outpouring of grief for Diana has not since been repeated to the same extent, the death of any public figure does seem to spark an outpouring of grief on some level, with fans often going to lay flowers at the house of the deceased, or the hospital where they died.

But I can’t help wondering why people feel the need to do this.  I suppose that on some levels people do feel they know these people while they are alive.  After all we can generally read about their every move in the press, down to what they have for breakfast and how they spend their free time, and if one is a particular fan then I suppose you might be particularly touched if they then die.  However, given that most fans of celebrities don’t actually meet their idol while they are alive, it seems odd to me that they would feel the need to express a perceived grief once they are dead. 

Or is it that there is a greater acceptance of displaying emotion for someone who was known and loved by many, than there is of displaying personal emotion, and therefore the public grief for a public figure is more of an expression of feelings that relate to one's personal circumstances?

They'll drink to that - children as young as twelve drinking too much?

This week a survey was published which revealed that children as young as twelve are allegedly drinking as many as nineteen glasses of wine a week.  Furthermore, it revealed that a quarter of children are regularly getting drunk by the age of fourteen. 

I think it’s been common knowledge for some time that young children do often gain access to alcohol and that some will do so to excess.  And in truth this is not a new phenomenon, as teenagers have been experimenting with alcohol for decades. 

However, while there will of course be children who have used alcohol to this degree, I can’t help wondering how much of this is just bravado on the part of those answering these surveys.  

If the results of this survey are to be taken at face value, then we have to believe that Britain has a serious alcohol problem among our teens.  What we also have to consider is that somewhere, adults are enabling this behaviour by either purchasing alcohol for these young teens or allowing them to purchase it.  And then what of the parents?  Twelve is still very young – they are only just in secondary school and for most will only just be given some freedom to venture out on their own.  Even at fourteen one surely wouldn’t imagine that they have enough freedom to be going out and getting drunk once a week.  If at fourteen 25% of children get drunk once a week, then should we not consider that 25% of parents are failing?  After all how could you not notice your child getting drunk that regularly?

While of course the prominence of alcohol among teenagers should not be underestimated, I think it is equally important that we not necessarily blow these findings out of proportion, and that we should allow some leeway for the fact that a large proportion of children, who are impressionable and easily led after all, will give the answers that make them look most favourable in front of their peers, and that if drinking nineteen glasses of wine or getting drunk once a week is seen as cool, then they will most probably want to be seen as conforming to that, even if they would be unlikely to actually do it.

When should inadmissible evidence be allowed?

This afternoon A Dutchman, Vincent Tabak, was found guilty of murdering Joanna Yeates in Bristol in December 2010.  Tabak had already pleaded guilty to manslaughter, claiming that he had tried to kiss her, and when she screamed, he had put a hand over her mouth, another around her neck and accidentally strangled her to death.  He then disposed of her body and attempted to implicate an innocent man, Chris Jefferies, in her murder. Mr Jefferies was arrested and hounded by the media to the extent that he has subsequently successfully sued a number of the British tabloids for libel.

The prosecution’s case was that Mr Tabak had visited Joanna Yeates with a sexual motive and had then murdered her.  The defence had argued that Mr Tabak was in a monogamous relationship and was generally sexually inexperienced and had misread signals from Ms Yeates which had led to him making a pass at her and then accidentally killing her. 

In the end Tabak was found guilty of murder by a majority verdict, and has been sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum term of twenty years.

However, subsequent to the verdict, it has been disclosed that images were found on Tabak’s computers depicting strangulation pornography, where women were strangled and in some instances, bound and gagged in the back of cars.  This evidence was granted inadmissible by the judge on the basis it might prejudice the jury.

Now questions are being asked as to why this evidence was not considered admissible in court. 

In truth the fact the evidence was not presented has proven to be irrelevant in this case, since Tabak has been convicted of murder.  However, given the argument for the defence was one of intent, it was not beyond the realms of possibility that a jury could have found him not guilty of murder without knowing all the facts about him.

This was a man who enjoyed watching videos of women being strangled, who then went out and strangled a woman and killed her.  Perhaps it could be argued that being in possession of this knowledge might sway the jury in terms of their own moral opinions on the viewing of this kind of material.  However given this was a man who was presented as sexually naive, having never had a girlfriend until the age of 29, and having misconstrued the signals given to him by a woman, which then led to her death, is it not also possible that the jury has been sent out to consider a verdict without actually being in possession of the full facts? 

As a rule, previous exploits and convictions are not taken into account when someone is tried for a crime, for fear that a jury might be prejudiced and also because disclosure of previous convictions can be used as a reason for appeal if it is believed that the jury were prejudiced due to the disclosure of previous convictions/pastimes.

I am torn over this.  I can see why past convictions are not taken into account, after all if someone is convicted of a crime doesn’t necessarily mean they will go on to commit the same crime again, and having knowledge of this fact would almost certainly sway a jury in terms of reaching a verdict. 

But here we have a man who strangled an innocent woman, who admitted to doing so because he claimed his sexual naivety led him to misconstrue the signals she gave him when she invited him into her flat for a drink.  The jury are led to believe by the defence that this man didn’t have a girlfriend until he was 29, we could be forgiven for thinking that perhaps he was socially awkward, but otherwise a man of previously unblemished character.  

Meanwhile the prosecution are trying to put forward a case for there being a sexual motive to the crime, except there is no evidence to suggest a sexual motive – no sexual assault, she was still wearing her jeans, etc. 

Only after the jury have delivered their verdict did it become apparent that this man was into watching violent porn where women are strangled and bound and gagged in the back of cars.  And suddenly a sexual motive becomes abundantly clear.  And even if it doesn’t lead to intent to kill, it completely alters the argument that a man who was into strangulation porn who then strangled a woman didn’t know what he was doing.

As I said further up this post, the fact this evidence wasn’t entered at this stage does not alter things – Vincent Tabak was found guilty of murder.  But he was not found guilty by a majority – two jurors did not believe him to be guilty.

Would the evidence have altered the outcome?

If the defence paint someone as an upstanding citizen should the prosecution not be able to present evidence that directly contradicts these statements?

And more to the point, if someone’s fetishes spill over into real life and someone ends up dead, should these not be explored as part of the motive for committing the crime in the first place?

egg donation - or is it now egg selling?

This week the human fertilisation and embryology authority (HFEA)
announced that it is considering tripling payments to women who donate
their eggs.

Currently egg donors are paid approximately £250 for their donation,
but it is hoped that increasing payments might encourage more women to
come forward.

For me this raises huge questions as to whether we are turning
potential children into commodities.

Egg donation is considered to be a selfless and altruistic act,
entered into by women who want to be able to give an infertile couple
the chance of having a child. The current payment is considered
enough to cover costs such as travel costs. But if this sum is
increased then surely it becomes questionable as to whether it is in
fact a donation or whether women are in fact then selling their eggs.

There are many countries where women are paid for their eggs, and this is seen as controversial because many of these women are poor and this is their only means of making some money.  Therefore it is not unreasonable to suggest that many of these women are exploited by the fertility clinics, who pay them a small amount of money for their eggs while taking vast sums from the desperate couples who travel there in order to receive fertility treatments. 

Fertility treatments are strictly regulated in the UK, and so it is hoped that if payments to egg donors were increased this too would be regulated in order to ensure that women were adequately counselled in order that they were fully aware of the risks of the treatments plus the potential long term implications. 

In the UK donors are not given anonymity, therefore if you choose to donate your eggs or sperm there is a chance that any resulting biological child would be entitled to contact you in the future should they wish to do so.  This step has, in fact, been seen as a huge contributing factor towards the drop in egg/sperm donors over the past few years. 

Egg donation is invasive and is not without risk.  Therefore generally women who choose to go through the process do so because they want to give an infertile couple the chance to have a baby.  I can’t help thinking that increasing the payments received will lead others to decide to go for egg donation for purely financial reasons.  People should donate their eggs because they want to donate their eggs, not because they want the money. 

The fertility industry is now a multi million pound industry.  Without donor eggs, many hundreds of couples go abroad and receive their treatments there.  Perhaps I am cynical in wondering whether a small payment made to women to sell their eggs is seen as a boost to an already thriving industry, and that women will be more likely to spend their money in the UK rather than going abroad for treatment.