It used to be that respect and trust was earned. An apprentice would live with his teacher from age 14 to 21. If the apprentice was a good learner, and the Master a good teacher, he would become a respected craftsman at 21 and the cycle continued. During the formative years of his life, the boy would live in the Master’s home, on his floor, by his fire. The Apprentice would pick up the skills and knowledge of the Master, building a reputation for good or bad – character, temperament and skills. When he was finished with the apprenticeship he would have proved he was worthy of whatever respect he received.

We moved from this labour-intensive method of passing on skills to respect for intellectual endeavours. And now to virtual… Just because I type “15,000 people in Wisconsin have XYZ disease.” it doesn’t make it so. If I quote someone else on the internet for the “fact” it still doesn’t make it so. But we seem to believe what we read that is written by ANYONE. If I told you the same thing face-to-face you might be able to pick up on my lie – I am not a convincing liar. The look in my eye, my body language, the tone of my voice. All of these unintentional interactions are lost on-line.

“lol” doesn’t mean I actually laughed out loud – it means I acknowledge that someone made a “funny”. I might be just being polite. The façade I present on the internet is how I want you to see me, but it might be blown away by how you felt after shaking my hand.

The rise of social networking makes instant “friends” of unlimited numbers of virtual people. But we know nothing real about them because in fact they don’t exist. Reality is airbrushed (Photoshop tutorial to follow…?)

The truth was always what we chose to believe at the time. Now it is difficult to know who to believe.