SATURDAY 24th OCTOBER 2020 ~ BLOG POST

THE HACKING ATTEMPT 

by John Yeo

  There’s nothing worse than the horrific feeling when you suddenly realise you are under attack and in danger of your social media account getting hacked. Suddenly you begin to get sundry messages from a few friends enquiring about a post that purportedly comes from you. Then the fight begins as you hastily check all the latest messages and posts and the realisation begins to sink in that there is an online battle in progress. One message from a family member who instantly realised what was going on, cautioned with the advice to immediately change the password and a report should be sent to the social media site. Strangely an unknown ‘dodgy’ account had surfaced that had my photograph and we both reported this to the social media site. 

  Unbelievably while all this was going on there was a drop in the strength of our internet network signal and I was unable to do much as the signal became weak and started to get weaker. Eventually I was able to put out several messages warning my friends not to open any links that were purportedly to be from me on any of our mutual sites.

  The social media site then emailed to report the suspect site was not pretending to be me. I had to dispute this and I immediately emailed them back pointing out that it was my photograph. The whole site then suddenly disappeared.

  Slowly I proceeded to delete all the unexplained messages on the social media site and things quickly returned to some semblance of normality.

I’m now in the process of changing many of my passwords and personal details on this particular social media site. A frightening day revealing the  ongoing perils of using social media.

FRIDAY 23rd OCTOBER 2020 ~ BLOG POST

LONELINESS 

by John Yeo

  There is a common condition that is an insidious state of mind that comes upon many, many people, irrespective of social standing or age group. I refer of course to the effects of loneliness which can be a killer that stunts the personality and eats away at a person’s self-esteem. The punishing effects of isolation are infinitely worse at present, due to a tiny lethal virus that spreads through social contact. 

   We have several friends who have lost their partners after many years of a happy relationship, who were struggling with loneliness even before the ongoing Covid pandemic that is sweeping the world. Sadly now in this time of lockdown isolation, these friends are obviously feeling more isolated than ever. The government advice is to stay safe and keep a regulated distance away from others. 

   This practical advice, based on hard scientific evidence is just one of the harsh measures that increases the solitude of many lonely people. Pubs, clubs and cafes are locked down as well as most social and sporting activities where people could meet and socialise with one another. 

  There is nothing to beat social contact with a walking, talking, human being, as opposed to the cold online, or telephone contact that people are reduced to at present.

  The emotional  effects of this sort of situation can be devastating to the sense of identity and forces a deterioration in one’s self confidence. Not being able to fully connect with others leads to a slow insidious corrosion of self esteem that finally affects our communication skills, making it harder to form lasting friendships in the future.

 For those of us who are lucky enough to be in a stable rewarding relationship it becomes something of a huge responsibility to just reach out and take time to talk through the mask of isolation. 

  The proverbial Good Samaritan would be nursing the psychological wounds today of the friend or neighbour who has been robbed of their self esteem by this evil virus and trapped in this cage of loneliness.

© Written by John Yeo ~ All rights reserved

PLEASE SHARE WIDELY