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October 12, 2006
Do young people want microchip payment implants? Not really.
The sky is falling! Or is it? .
A breathless report in yesterday's UK Daily Mail proclaimed that "young shoppers want to pay with chip in skin." While this headline is certainly explosive (it got the attention of the Drudge report), it is also utterly preposterous. If you read the article, you will quickly discover that young people do NOT want to "pay with a chip in the skin." Indeed, 92% of them said they did not.
Picking up a survey in which virtually all respondents say they would NOT do something and reporting it as a ringing endorsement is misleading journalism, plain and simple. The Daily Mail should be ashamed.
But assuming there was some real news here, how significant is it that 8% of teens said they'd get a payment chip? Just for kicks, I looked around the net at other studies of UK teens. Let's compare a few statistics. While 8% of teens say they would consider a payment chip implant, another survey shows that 20% of teens are experiencing psychological problems at any given time, and nearly a third of college students have contemplated suicide at some point in their lives. Contemplating suicide would seem far more dramatic than considering a chip implant, yet we don't read stories proclaiming that UK youth are lining up in droves to kill themselves.
What's more, a third of UK teens reported vandalizing property within the last year, a quarter reporterd shoplifting, forty percent had binged on alcohol, and half reported committing at least one criminal act. [Source] In other words, teens (as we know) are still trying to figure out the basic rules of social behavior and self-control, and are likely to harm themselves in the process.
Given these other eye-opening statistics, the amazing part of the chipping study is that more teens didn't agree, even on paper (where there's no reality check in the form of a massive hypodermic needle), to get a chip implant.
What all this boils down to is that, statistically speaking, teens prefer suicide over chip implants. The headline should instead read, "I'd sooner kill myself than get chipped."
-Katherine Albrecht
Posted by Katherine Albrecht at October 12, 2006 10:38 AM
Comments
Katherine,
The One World Government backers will say and do anything to get people indoctriated into believing THE CHIP is KOOL. They will even use the willing media to hype This GARBAGE to the unsuspecting impressionable young people. More brain washing of our young.
Linda
In Oregon, USA
Posted by: Linda at October 18, 2006 2:40 PM
Im not for this one bit, Im Catholic butI dont go to Church at all, But if you Implant these Chips into humans to pay for things- Were in Big trouble Thats the Mark of the Beast when you Implant that chip into yourself. I would rather Die than be Implanted. Name with-held.
Posted by: With Held at October 18, 2006 6:47 PM
Great article, Katherine. That Mail headline looks like it may lazily have been taken from a press release, perhaps issued by an organisation with a vested interest in RFID / microchipping.
Did you spot this story in the same paper a couple of weeks later Britons 'could be microchipped like dogs in a decade' ?
Not sure if such stories help raise awareness about the coming threat of this technology, or just serve to soften us up, implanting the idea in our heads ahead of the chips in our bodies.
Posted by: Martin at November 10, 2006 12:58 PM