Leeneia - It is the loss of traditional community in our culture which has resulted in millions of people who are so isolated from one another that they don't have enough basis of mutual trust left to feel "safe" about some other adult innocently speaking to their child.

This wasn't the case in traditional communities as they existed not too long ago historically...before the automobile, the radio, the TV, the computer, the cellphone, and the airplane.

And it isn't the case in places where traditional community still does exist, as in much of the Third World, and in some intentional communities (such as churches, ashrams, communes, groups like the Amish, and other such groups of people who form a community around common values or philosophies, and who are used to relating to each other and trusting each other as friends within that community).

The underlying fear that people have of each other now in the developed world is based in a direct ratio to how little they actually know or associate with each other, and how much they are isolated in their little private boxes (their homes) with their little electronic companions (TV, Computer, ipod, iPhone, iPad, Facebook, etc.) rather than experiencing the normal give and take that occurs in a living community of persons who share the same 3-D life together, which is what used to be the normal thing before all our convenient technology took it away from us bit by bit. People don't frigging USE their front porches anymore! They're inside watching the damn TV.

We in the affluent countries are living in an Orwellian world now, and it's taking its toll on everyone, creating fear, paranoia, and isolation from one another.

The only way you can counteract that is to turn off your electronic companions, walk out the door, and find ways of building real community with other people in the real world.

The one (and only) electronic companion that takes up way too much of my time is the computer. And I know it. But I do find ways of participating in community outside the front door. Those things I experience in real 3-D community mean ten times to me what anything I get from this computer does...and belonging to a digital (online) community can't possibly match what one gets out of traditional community in the 3-D world. Matter of fact, I think that most of the time online community is just a way for a lot of people to keep themselves distracted, briefly amused, fight boredom, and hide from dealing with actual life in the real world.