After spending two hours on the Internet last week researching my friend's rare tumor that is eating away at her insides, and another two trying to find organizations that will help my sister get her Master's in Social Work at Bryn Mawr, I heard the reports on television of a mass suicide in California. Mass suicide in cults is not a phenomenon in the history of the world, but it's always fascinating. What could make such a large number of people drop their personal identities to pick up the beliefs of a group and even become the persona of the group? It's a question that has been studied and analyzed for centuries. I mean, there are people who write books about it, give lectures, and even get their names plastered all over our TV screens with the official title of "Cult Expert." But if you were to listen to all the recent media reports, you'd think that this was a new thing created, and promoted, solely by the Internet.

The minute I heard this link to the Net, I could just hear the media headlines blaring: "Cults on the Internet - we'll tell you how to protect your children." The ever-popular media scare tactic: use the kids to incite adult fears. Every news organization, every local station, in every state in this country, is telling you (in a report that takes a whole two minutes of fine investigative broadcasting) that every time your child turns on the computer, she is in danger of being lured into a cult. I don't think it's the Net we should fear, but the TV ratings war.

I'm not going to completely slam the television media, however, because there have been some really interesting follow-ups to this story. One network did a great job on a live call-in show. They had cult historians, cult analysts, and Internet experts answering questions from a live audience. One cult expert explained how at the last change of millennium people actually went out of their minds with fear and even died from heart attacks. That same man talked about another cult that committed mass suicide in the nineteenth century. They believed that a comet would signal the Apocalypse, and so, in order not to get caught in the crush at St. Peter's Gate, they killed themselves in advance, in small groups at a time. It just made me realize that this is yet another weird aspect of human nature. Another network spent a good deal of time examining the cult, its members, it origins and beliefs, and talked to some of the grieving families, and ex-cult members, making this story more human, less threatening, and certainly less like an episode of the "X-Files."

This may be the first cult-related mass suicide with specific ties to the Internet, but it really doesn't have anything to do with the Internet, that just makes the tabloids sell. If we read every story about pedophile, rapists, and "whackos" on the Net; and listened to every two minute news report on people who are attacked because they met someone on the Net, we'd all throw out our computers and rely solely on the communication resources we are most familiar with like pens and paper. If we were to weigh the positive stories against the negative stories we hear on the news, the negatives would win for sure. And I find this ironic considering every television news executive will tell you that the future of the medium lies on the Internet.

The Internet is not a plague, it's not a stalker, it's not a beast hidden behind a garage waiting to pounce on innocent children, it's not even a self-perpetuated "thing." It's the modern age of communication -- the whole world connected by cables. We can either hook-up and move along with the times, or we can stay isolated and waste a lot of money on stamps. We all know the world is not a safe place, but we're not all going to "off" ourselves with large doses of phenobarbital because of it. We do our best to stay away from danger, and to trust our instincts when it comes to getting involved with other people. What difference does it make if we get cult messages through regular mail, from pamphlets on the street, or via fax machines? It's our option to read the stuff or throw it away. It's even our right to seek it out if we choose. And if we're really worried about our kids getting spammed with cult literature, then it's our responsibility to watch out for our kids in the virtual world.