According to various pieces of misinformation floating around the Internet, my first name is Geraldine and I am 65-years-old. While I won't admit my correct age to cyber-space, I will say that if my mother was still alive, she would be 68 as of last week.
On another site my first name is James and I live in Somerville. Where exactly is Somerville?
Somewhere else my daughter is listed as 44-years-old. (If you are confused about the math, see the age of her deceased grandmother above.)
We live in the age of information. A tremendous amount of our personal lives is written in one large electronic open book. It only takes a couple of clicks to track down just about anyone. But do they really live there? Or of all the locations listed, which is the current one? I can find "proof" online that my grandfather, who died in 2004, is still alive and living in his house. I can also order a copy of his death certificate, also online.
I once paid the bucks to run an online check on my father, only to get all the information together in one place that I had already found by myself for free. And it still amounted to very little. There simply was not enough accurate information to find where he lived. He died less than a month after I paid for this report. I didn't see him before he died.
So what does it mean that so much of what we can find is wrong? If my students are reading this (and they managed to make it to class the day we talked about evaluating internet sources) they remember that some sources are more trustworthy than others, and that there are several ways to determine what websites should or should not be trusted. But even with that knowledge it takes a good deal of digging to unearth the false and toss it out of the knowledge equation.
A very nice (local) bank salesperson showed up at my door several months ago. (Yes, they do exist.) She asked if I was Mrs. Buccelli. The poor thing looked so confused. She was looking for me, but she was under the impression I was born in the late 1940s and planned to try and sell me bank products for seniors.
Clearly she hadn't simply done an Internet search; she had been given information from a credible financial source. The explanation if logical: when my grandfather died I was required by law to take distribution from the remainder of his retirement account. The calculations for splitting it up into equal payments was rather complicated, and somewhere in the system an age was attached to my file that does not reflect reality, only what the computer system needed to know in order to cut some checks.
I explained this and she was very gracious. She then attempted to tell me about products the bank offered for parents of young children. Oops. My kids are grown. She had a difficult time believing that I was old enough to have grown kids. This woman made my day, even with erroneous information.
The invitations to AARP, the urgent messages to choose my medicare prescription health plan immediately, the long-term health care insurance policies, and the funeral home surveys don't have the same effect. I'm not against any of these item, but I don't qualify for a one.
I suppose that to an extent misinformation shields my privacy. I do have an online presence that I maintain, and so have some control over what is out there. If you don't really know if I am Geraldine or James or Ginny, then I am just that much safer. But for those folks who really want to know me, they aren't going to do it solely online. It takes time and care, like any good relationship. I'm not inviting stalkers, cyber or otherwise. Consider it more of a warning. Do you know who I am? Really? And are you sure you want to?
