Sociologists debate Y2K

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Sociologists debate Y2K anxiety By Cathy Rubin TRIBUNE-REVIEW

On an adult shopping Web site, people can find a mate to last a lifetime - or an apocalypse.

At dsmlingerie.com, not only are there ads for the typical lonely soul, but the site features a personals page for the dateless "concerned about Y2K events and difficulties with our current living environment."

"I want a woman who is serious about preparing for Y2K," one entry begins. "I cannot spend six months to convince you there is a problem. I want to prepare for the Y2K problem now."

Another says: "The Y2K problem is very serious. A good woman who is concerned would be wonderful to have as my wife."

The Web site is like countless others proving a portion of the population expects a millennium catastrophe after computers, programmed only to read the last two digits of the year, advance from "99" to "00."

Sociologists differ on the depth of emotion people will experience as the new year approaches, but agree that everyone will be at least a little bit anxious.

Borrowing from the 1969 book "On Death and Dying" by psychologist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, co-authors Gordon Davidson and Corinne McLaughlin wrote an article called "The psychological challenges of Y2K" that has been posted on the Utne Reader Online Web site.

Davidson and McLaughlin, co-founders of the Center for Visionary Leadership in Washington, D.C., said when dealing with the new year, people first will experience denial, followed by anger, then fear, depression and panic, and eventually acceptance and cooperation.

People deny the possibility of a catastrophe because "it's difficult to assimilate the potential severe cascading systemic effects that could result from a loss of power in the electric grid, failures in 1,000-mile-long food supply lines or sewage-treatment plants," the article said.

MariJean Ferguson, a sociology professor at LaRoche College in McCandless, described the social phenomenon as the result of anxiety people experience when facing the unknown.

But she said it is a little bizarre to apply the five stages of dealing with death with a possible computer glitch.

"For Kubler-Ross' stages to be applicable, there has to be an ultimate reality to be faced, and I don't think there is one with Y2K," Ferguson said.

Ferguson equated the panic created by Y2K with people who descend in droves upon local supermarkets to clear the shelves of bread and canned goods right before a winter storm.

Despite the possibility each winter of power outages and disabling snow, most people always are more likely to create a last-minute panic than to stock their homes in advance with needed goods, Ferguson said.

As with Y2K, people also may be inclined to panic despite assurances from utilities and government agencies about compliance, Ferguson said.

Also, Ferguson said, people typically invest great significance in numbers, such as milestone birthdays. The millennium has amplified superstitions so that people have come to expect an apocalypse.

"You have a millennium approaching and with that some people invest an almost mystical belief system," she said. "People usually handle anxiety two ways, by denying or to become extremist. Around the millennium you get an extension of the polar opposite ways of handling fears and anxiety."

Regional News - November 30, 1999

-- Deb M. (vmcclell@columbus.rr.com), December 01, 1999

Answers

Ms. Ferguson says there has to be an ultimate reality to be faced in order for the Kubler-Ross stages to apply. Since Ms. Ferguson doesn't think there's an ultimate reality here, she doesn't think the Kubler-Ross stages should apply.

Now, I only skimmed the post, and I could have missed something, but it seems she's got it exactly backwards. Since we're talking about an individual's psychological state, not what Ms. Ferguson happens to personally believe, there only has to be an ultimate reality that is perceived for the Kubler-Ross stages to apply. How likely this "ultimate reality" is to actually ultimately occur is a different matter entirely.

-- eve (123@4567.com), December 01, 1999.


while i tend to agree with eve, i also must accept that y2k is not as "ultimate" as a pronouncement of terminal cancer or somesuch; it is a "great unknown". kubler-ross stages of coping with death would better apply once y2k has begun to substantially affect the world status quo for the worse. at that time, people will literally be faced with a shift in reality, and will have to begin coping all at once. some people, however, have already gone through the denial and/or the anger, and have made their way through to believing in the likelihood that y2k will be highly disruptive (via infomagic, e.g.), and have begun accepting the consequent changes.

-- RZN (robinsun@netscape.net), December 01, 1999.

LINK

while i tend to agree with eve, i also must accept that y2k is not as "ultimate" as a pronouncement of terminal cancer or somesuch; it is a "great unknown". kubler-ross stages of coping with death would better apply once y2k has begun to substantially affect the world status quo for the worse. at that time, people will literally be faced with a shift in reality, and will have to begin coping all at once. some people, however, have already gone through the denial and/or the anger, and have made their way through to believing in the likelihood that y2k will be highly disruptive (via infomagic, e.g.), and have begun accepting the consequent changes.

-- RZN (robinsun@netscape.net), December 01, 1999.


RZN,

Good points. My response really applied only to the people who have thought about this to such a degree that they actually have come to some sort of "vision" that they have accepted as to what will most likely occur. Given this, and given that the "vision" was a bad scenario, I think Kubler-Ross' stages would be the next expected steps for those people.

-- eve (123@4567.com), December 01, 1999.


To supplement my post above: Regardless of whether this "vision" ever actually comes to pass, its probability is real enough for the person that I think it can be taken to be close enough to the equivalent of a terminal illness that the Kubler-Ross stages would then seem to be the next natural step.

-- eve (123@4567.com), December 01, 1999.


As a related issue - and speaking incidentally as someone who majored in sociology - one of the amazing things about this whole Y2K thing is that is has been almost universally ignored by the academic community worlwide, across all disciplines (human, scientific and technical). The pot has been boiling on the back burner for nearly a year and the utterances of academics with their academic hats on amounts to little more banalaties.

-- Chris Byrne (cbyrne98@hotmail.com), December 01, 1999.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

Psychology of Y2K

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), December 02, 1999.


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