Now this is something I could be seriously frightened about. (File Photo)
One of my dearest friends, a fellow journalist, left for West Africa today to report on the Ebola epidemic. She called me 10 days ago to see if I thought she was crazy to take the assignment. I told her what she already knew — but probably was glad to have confirmed — her chances of death are far greater in her daily commute than they are even on this relatively risky assignment.
Fear has been in the headlines a lot since Ebola came to the U.S. So this new national study by Chapman University in Orange, Calif., is well timed. Claiming to be the “first comprehensive nationwide study on what strikes fear in Americans,” the survey lists the top five fears like so:
1) Walking alone at night
2) Becoming the victim of identity theft
3) Safety on the internet
4) Being the victim of a mass/random shooting
5) Public speaking
Several of those seem the product of a self-fulfilling cycle: The media — and our culture in general — focuses attention on crime and internet issues. So even though, for instance, crime is down, it still gets two of the five spots.
The top five things Americans worry about are:
1) Having identity stolen on the internet
2) Corporate surveillance of internet activity
3) Running out of money in the future
4) Government surveillance of internet activity
5) Becoming ill/sick
Again, interesting that three of the top five are internet related. (As a society, we seem mighty guilty about our online activities!)
The survey involved 1,500 participants; the research team is most interested in creating a baseline that will allow it to make comparisons in years to come.
There’s a lot of information to chew over in this research, which looked at the categories of personal fears, crime, natural disasters and fear factors. According to the analysis, two predictors of high levels of fear across all categories are lower education and watching a lot of talk shows and true-crime shows.
As far as my fears? Snakes is at the top for me. Dying in an airplane crash is another. None of the five “top fears” that Chapman University uncovered among its responses would make my top five.But then again, I don’t watch talk shows or true-crime shows. And, while some might argue otherwise, I got a pretty good education at Baylor.