The odds of any given event impacting someone you know is so small as to be incomprehensible. Do you get worried because you heard there was a shooting in a city and it might have included your friends? You probably don't, and before Facebook you wouldn't have given it a second thought. Your friends are more likely to get hit by a car or have a heart attack and you and Facebook would never know and that's ok. Those are the odds and we don't always have to be connected.

Yeah, it's a human mistake, but technology should be moving people away from animalistic fears and desires, not pushing them towards it. The easier thing to do would be to realize those odds and realize you can't control these things instead of relying on a social network as a crutch.

That may be cynical, but Facebook isn't doing this because they care about you, they're doing it because it's yet another way to get people attached so Facebook can make advertising dollars. That's cynical.

My grandfather has always (my mother has identical stories from when she was young) been deadly afraid when, on tv or newspaper, a city or even country was named and I was there. Like when I was in Seattle and in the news there was some big fire somewhere in the US, he would panic and start calling my mother.

My partner still get worried calls from her parents any time there ANY accident going on in the UK, and we live in London, so you might be underestimating the impulse of people worrying about their loved ones...

> technology should be moving people away from animalistic fears and desires, not pushing them towards it.

Do you have a suggestion for how that could be practically done?

> The easier thing to do would be to realize those odds and realize you can't control these things instead of relying on a social network as a crutch.

Easier? What the easy way you're suggesting for changing these attitudes and beliefs among the general population?