Steven Birenbaum: Dialing Down the Fight or Flight

Do crime alerts make us safer, or just scared? Steven Birenbaum tells us his Perspective.

If you’re like me, you may have heard friends and neighbors repeating a litany of stories they’ve read about smash-and-grabs, muggings and assaults. I’ve been guilty of it myself.

The truth is, while non-violent crime has been on the rise, violent crime has not.

Yet judging by the constant alerts we receive from services like Next Door and the Berkeley Scanner you’d think we’re living 24/7 in an apocalyptic hellhole, one that sounds a lot like Trump’s “American carnage.”

For too long, I’ve received a daily flurry of e-mails with headlines like, “I just got mugged” and “I’ve had enough.”

Do these alerts – and alert is an apt word – make us safer? Or do they cause a near-constant spike in cortisol?

Is it truly useful to know there are juvenile marauders roaming the streets acting like idiots? And do you stick around to learn that they were caught?

How about the near-daily reports of a guy (or is it guys?) casually bashing in car windows with a hammer to see if there’s anything valuable inside?

Unlike learning about an accident ahead of you on the highway, absorbing these distressing incidents day after day doesn’t seem to alter the fundamental issues that drive this behavior.

If homeowners are afraid to venture out in fear, does that worsen public safety?

I realize not everyone gets stirred up the same way, but I worry about the corrosive impact of these “cognitive biases” on our collective psyche and sense of community. Three years after the start of the pandemic we don’t need more reasons to be fearful, antisocial or mistrustful.

It took some doing, but I finally figured out how to silence these alerts. Now, in addition to being unaware my neighbor is selling his ancient golf clubs, my inbox is no longer flooded with distressing incidents that may or may not be happening near where I live.

Ignorance is bliss.

With a Perspective, I’m Steven Birenbaum.

Steven Birenbaum receives his news alerts in Berkeley.