Friday, April 05, 2002

Publisher's Note ~ Disturbing News

Aside from the disturbing stories about the ongoing battles in other parts of our world, there were two other news items that were of significant interest to me.

First, we're all getting ruder. That's right. Americans are getting meaner, nastier and more socially unacceptable by the minute. Public Agenda, a New York-based nonprofit organization, conducted a poll with 2,013 adults that found 79% of them felt rudeness in America was a serious problem. I would agree. Among the most offensive are customer service situations and call centers, people on their cell phones talking loudly and reckless driving. While not many solutions were offered by the survey subjects, we'd all do well by just remembering the Golden Rule we learned in Kindergarten (or I hope you learned) -- and we might be able to do away with some of this anti-social behavior. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." And for more pearls of wisdom, feel free to check out our Social Notes archive at: http://www.thecyberscene.com/socialnotes/index.html

For more information: http://www.publicagenda.org/
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/04/02/rude.americans/index.html

The other piece of upsetting news was that we're still not getting enough sleep, which is one of the things that is making us more irritable (see above). According to this poll, conducted by the National Sleep Foundation (NSF), people who slept less than six hours a night felt more stressed, angry, sad and tired than people who got more sleep. A major reason for this is our overly-busy lives, multi-tasking lives in the new, new economy. So while it may not be as exciting to party it up 'til the wee hours, or feel as if we're being as productive by not working 14-hour days and then having a killer game of squash before heading home to work on our new novel, you might be doing yourself a favor by heading off to the slumber-chamber earlier and catching a few more Zzzzzz's.

For more information: http://www.msnbc.com/news/732683.asp?0dm=C1EOH