You tube. Face Book.Msn.Skype.



All apparently fantastic ways of communicating with others. All the grisly murders of perhaps internet inspired or fame induced origin of recent weeks though ?Of a lovely Maltese looking girl in Perugia, Italy, or of schoolchildren in Finland gunned down by one who was again little more than a schoolboy himself. Educated middle class people murdering others. What is going on? And on Friday the news that a UK MP’s daughter has been remanded in custody after a sex game turned violent in France.



A scary story again.



Two people who didn’t know each other meet in a bar in France. He, Mr Mugnier known to be a ladies’ man. She, Miss Davies had taken to drinking after splitting up with her boyfriend of four years. They both consume, like most of Malta’s party people do, loads of alcohol and other less legal but very mainstream substances( again which no amount of policing is going to change). They play a sex game where one holds a knife to the other’s throat (same as the killing of beautiful Meredith in Italy) She claims she killed him by mistake, though this has yet to be verified. How you can ever prove this beyond reasonable doubt, beyond putting close circuit TV in all the rooms of all our homes perhaps is beyond me.



The Internet is undoubtedly fuelling two things. One this global mania to be famous which we can now all be by posting stuff about ourselves on the net. Secondly, and a lot darker, a need to stand out in whatever way. Most of us are not that talented after all. But most of us have an imagination, sometimes even a sick one .Those who are desperate for fame, notoriety, or just plain being noticed are posting all their fantasies on the net. And many of them are reasonably educated, are young people who can’t be alone even for a minute it appears.



The minute they are at home alone, or with parents downstairs they get into this unreal world where they can talk to anyone, have unreal relationships, relive their sickest fantasies? Of course secondary school children are especially vulnerable to being misled by the power of the Net. Research by Ofsted in the UK discovered realities which are mirrored here too. Thirty per cent of young people interviewed said they had experienced some form of bullying in the last month. Their biggest fear was of exams. Many of them had fears of getting into trouble and were fearful about how to deal with the opposite sex. A significant number took alcohol or drugs to help them deal with stress perhaps. So it’s a tough world in early adolescence isn’t it, and you can see what easy prey these youngsters are to the apparently much easier world of the Net.

The case in Italy is a textbook warning to all parents. A young and pretty college student goes abroad. Somehow she posts weird fantasies of herself on the net. Ok she brings men home to her flat, but then to allegedly kill her flatmate while reliving some fantasy she and her middle class Italian boyfriend had posted on the net is unnerving. Of course most people post entirely harmless things on the net. Pics of themselves and their families. But why would you want the whole world to see these pics? It’s understandable that you want these things seen by people who know you but when I was recently talking to a perfectly sane 30 something who had done something similar, that is post all these family pics on the net I started to wonder



This is not just a young person obsession thing is it? We all want the whole world, or the potential internet world to see us? Of course living in Malta where almost everyone has such a busy social lives there is perhaps less risk of fantasists going crazy but it is only a matter of time. I mean if someone sends me an email with innocuous words like terror on it, it will go to my junk mail. How is the net going to deal with all the junk that is being posted on Youtube, Facebook and the like? Should we really just ignore all this, as it looks like we are glibly doing? Who in real terms should we be more afraid of (depending on your point of view) as we live our daily lives, Osama Bin Laden or George Bush or the new so called friends we are msn-ing or perhaps even the geek upstairs or downstairs?marisaml@onvol.net