Stranger in the Woods: the origin, change, and limitations of Stranger Danger.

Stranger Danger, an instinct that developed through evolution, now poses a very different challenge for social interaction and online activities.

BY: JINGSHU HELEN YAO

I remember a story my mother told me: almost 20 years ago when I was a toddler, my mother brought me to a park we frequently visit. When we started to hike into the valley, we wandered off the trail and soon we were surrounded only by trees and no other visitors were in sight. My mother described the experience as one of the most anxious moments of her life. While it didn’t take very long for her to find the way back to the trail, her biggest fear at that time was “running into a strange man in the middle of the forest.” The fear, however, did not originate from a safety concern for herself, but the possibility that I might be abducted.

Warning Sign / Photo courtesy of iStock

I had no memory of that experience and my mother only used the story to mock her younger self as an inexperienced parent, or inexperienced person. Yet as I slowly approach my mother’s age in that story, I can totally imagine myself panicking under that situation.

 The notion of “stranger danger” is a result of evolutionary and social reasons. With human society continuously changing and adapting, the phrase also keeps expanding its way from early childhood education, to prevent women from sexual assault, and even made its way to the digital world.

A psychological experiment conducted on parents and non-parents by researchers from the University of California tried to explain the biological aspect of “stranger danger.” The different groups of adults are presented with two scenarios. In the first one, they walk through the woods and a strange man approaches. Same thing happens in the second one but this time, they have a child with them, which was very similar to what my mother imagined in the story she told. When each group is asked to describe the man, parents tend to imagine him to be taller and more muscular, and even non-parents rate the man to be more formidable when there is a child. It seems that parenthood increases the formability of the imaginary stranger and the reason can date back to the ancient time. Back in the Stone age, running into strangers in the wild was rather rare and could post a real threat to humans, especially to vulnerable members such as children. In modern society, seeing strangers is no longer considered a real danger on its own. Yet, the instinct carried from our ancestors still affects us, especially those who are concerned about the safety of a child.

The same evolutionary reason explained why we might feel tense in an environment where everyone else speaks a different language, dress, or behave differently. It seems to become a block that prevents us from treating differences rationally. 

Set the innate pulse aside, let’s consider the following statement.

Illustration for Children / Photo courtesy of Pinterest

“Don’t talk to strangers, don’t eat anything they give you, don’t go anywhere with them.”

This idea was planted into most children’s minds at a very young age and continuously influenced them after they grew up. They went on to teach their own children one of the most important lessons they learned growing up—“stranger = danger.”

However, statistics seem to say otherwise. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the United States, only one percent of abducted children were the typical stranger abduction scenario, the majority of cases were committed by noncustodial parents, relatives, and acquaintances. Statistic Canada recorded a higher percentage of stranger abduction, but the number of parental abduction is still seven times larger. The pattern remained true into adulthood. An article from The American Journal of Emergency Medicine pointed out that 76 percent of sexual assaults that happen to adults are conducted by someone the victim knows. 

The same pattern appeared in the case of protecting ourselves from COVID. Most individuals are mindful of keeping social distance from strangers in grocery stores or public transit but not so much when it comes to friends and acquaintances from another household. While the risk they bring might be similar, the fact that we know someone seems to make them sound safer. There is also evidence for people getting infected more often from their family and friends rather than strangers.

 While unknown individuals do indicate potential risks to the safety of children and adults alike, overemphasizing “stranger danger” seems to overlook the fact that familiarity doesn’t always mean safety. Rather, it might discourage children from seeking help from people around them when they are hurt or lost, which may put them in greater danger by avoiding strangers. On the other hand, some adults will choose not to approach a child on their own, fearing that their action might be suspected of child abduction. This potentially prevented them from intervening in child abuse or neglect.  

These statistics don’t mean that there is no need of being cautious when interacting with strangers, but that safe protection is important at any time. In the digital age, there are now enormous ways to get in contact with people that we don’t previously know. Younger generations tend to be more open towards making friends and dating online. Meeting strangers online is hard to relate to direct physical harm, which is less likely to trigger our biological instinct against danger. Stranger danger  in the digital world often occurs in a more subtle way, where the victim might not even be aware until it was too late.

Earlier this semester, I woke up one morning to find my U of T email account was hacked and sent out hundreds of spam at midnight. My account was soon blocked and I had to seek help from IT service, reactivate my account, and change all the passwords. It might be because I connected to a public wifi, or registered somewhere with my email address, with the complicated data and networking system, there’s no way to identify the person who hijacked my email. Information lick, unreliable online profiles, and cases of scam and fraud slowly formed the new definition of stranger danger: someone you never knew and will never meet could be dangerous regardless. 

Illustration for Stranger Danger Online / Photo courtesy of The Conversation

2020 forced us to move most of our activists online. Even after half a semester of studying together, I still feel that I don’t know my classmates at all. Sometimes I wonder, in the near future, whether parents will be more worried about the person who chats with their children at the other end of the network, rather than the actual stranger who they encounter in the middle of the woods.