ExpertDabbler

I had the rare privilege of browsing through ‘Dhina thanthi’ in the neighborhood saloon on Saturday. Needless to say, the paper was full of KKK news. For dummies, KKK stands for Kolai, Kollai, Karpazhippu but may also include fatal road accidents, suicides, etc.

I was promptly reminded of a Gladwell essay about a study on teen suicides which rises to alarming proportions in a small country called Micronesia. The essence of the article was that there was a perceptible increase, a kind of multiplier effect, in suicides (or similar deaths) once news of a prominent teen member in the community committing suicide is known. The article says the effect is not direct but this works on a subtler level.

Now that we might have PhDs in topics as useful as ‘Kalaignarin podhu vazhkai’, ‘Pa Vijay in thiraipada paadalgal’ etc. I wish someone does a study on the correlation of Dina thanthi readership and the number of suicides, thefts, accidents, crashes, fatalities in their families/known circles compared with normal folks. Personally, it freaks me out to imagine people consuming such ‘heavenly’ news everyday. Is it not a case of Garbage in, garbage out?

If that sounds too ambitious, maybe we can start with the number of deaths (suicides, people recklessly crossing the roads, homicide, dangerous two-wheeler riding) on the next two weeks when Silk Smitha, Simran’s sister, GV, committed suicide with ordinary weeks to see if there was any multiplier effect.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 14th, 2009 at 9:27 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.