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Finding lost items, supporting divorcees By Ofri Ilani Tags: Pinali, Ebood One day last winter, the phone rang in Shahar's house in Rosh Ha'ayin. On the line was a woman with an Arabic accent. "Are you Shahar?" she asked him, and he confirmed it hesitantly. "I found your name on the Internet. I have your cell phone." Only then did he recall that several weeks earlier, he had posted a notice on the ebood.co.il site about a cell phone that he lost near Kafr Kassem. "The phone made my life happy and with its help, I gained a lot," he wrote there. "Please find my phone in order to restore my self-confidence." The news that the lost item, which he had given up hope of getting back, had been found filled him with gratitude. "I must thank the Arab kindergarten teacher who found the phone and returned it to me, from the bottom of my heart," he wrote. "I will always remember that you helped me to find the phone. I'm happy; tomorrow it will be returned to my home." Advertisement Ebood (Lost) is the private initiative of Uri Brilliant, a young teacher from Beit Shemesh. He is one of 16 people who have earned the title "Angels on the Net," bestowed by the Israel Internet Association and the National Council for Volunteering in honor of the new year that began last week. "It was an idea I'd had for years, but I couldn't find anyone to implement it," said Brilliant. "In the end, I took a course in building web sites, set up the site, and it is doing well. These are things it would be impossible to find in other ways: If you hang a sign on a street corner, there is very little chance that someone will happen to pass by and find it. The Internet really rescues people, and it's great to see that it can be used for a good cause." Since its inception about a year ago, dozens of items have been returned to their owners thanks to this site, despite the fact that it has not been widely publicized. Each item has its own story: a hat with sentimental value that was lost during a hike in the north; a wristwatch that was lost at the Paul McCartney performance ("apparently it fell into the bag of the girl who was standing behind me"); a travel journal that was found by an Israeli traveler at the post office in Pushkar, India. Brilliant said he has been pleasantly surprised at the great willingness of visitors to the site to help people they do not know. "There are grounds for having a favorable attitude toward Israelis. They like to help and it's a nice thing to see." Most of the finders, he noted, do not expect compensation. "There are similar sites abroad, and there is always a window for filling in the reward that the finder plans to demand for the lost item. It's interesting that here in Israel, nobody thinks of demanding compensation." Not just sadism Last year, the Internet was subject to horrifying demonization. More than in the past, the media described the Web as a dangerous jungle in which all human vices circulate freely. The winners of the "Angels on the Net" awards remind us that the Internet is also bustling with positive initiatives and voluntary projects, some of which would have been impossible by any other means. Not all dating sites grade their members by physical attractiveness; there are also sites such as pinali.co.il, a dating site that focuses on creating relationships among disabled and handicapped people. YouTube has forums such as Volunteering Throughout the World, run by the camping equipment chain Lametayel (tinyurl.com/6prrnz), through which surfers can contact organizations in distressed countries for which they might want to volunteer. But the online goodness of heart is not restricted to sites set up for that purpose. Just as the anonymity of the Web brings out unbridled wickedness in some people, it enables others to overflow with extremes of kindness and tolerance that most people do not allow themselves to demonstrate in the real world. In a world that is becoming increasingly materialistic and aggressive, many people are finding a warm and comfortable corner on the Internet. It is true that blogs and forums contain numerous postings by "trolls" who try to heat up the discussion via provocations and slander, and these postings naturally attract the most attention. But if you look, you will discover that they are usually islands in a sea of responses that are sympathetic and encouraging, sometimes to the point of being cloying. "There is a very widespread phenomenon of mutual admiration in blogs," said philosopher Avinoam Ben Zeev of Oranim College, who studies social phenomena on the Internet. "Often, the positive emotions that are expressed on blogs tend to be exaggerated. I have examined a very large number of blogs, and I read inarticulate, unedited postings with lots of mistakes, yet the reactions are enthusiastic. It's true that some people express negative emotions, but they are in a very small minority. In terms of numbers, these reactions are simply negligible." Humanity's good nature Unlike many people, Ben Zeev believes that the relationships and emotions expressed on the Internet offer rare evidence that humankind is basically good by nature. "There is an argument that man is a wild beast by nature, and what makes him good is the fear that bad behavior will come back to harm him and he will be treated badly," he explained. "The Internet has created an opportunity for life with fictitious identities, which sever the connection between our actions and our identity. Ostensibly, we could expect that in such a situation, man's evil nature would flourish. And that really does happen, mainly in comments on online newspapers, and in chats, where evil sometimes erupts very clearly. But it turns out that things don't always work that way - for example, on blogs, where anonymous people help one another." What causes people to support and help people they do not know? According to Ben Zeev, "it's possible that some people react nicely in order to market their blog - in other words, there's a practical reason, too. But that's not all. There are quite a few responders who have no blogs, and they don't gain anything from their responses. Yet even among these people, the most outstanding trait is a demonstration of positive emotions." Some people claim that kindness and good deeds are a growing trend in the world of blogs and social networks. About two years ago, a single video clip on YouTube led to the creation of a worldwide movement of huggers, who stand in the street and offer a free hug to anyone who is interested. The surprising sight of a girl standing in Rabin Square and offering a warm hug to people she does not know is a product of the culture of kindness that developed on the Web. In the United States, more and more blogs in recent months have been promoting positive campaigns with the motto: "Be nice." The leading blog of this type is Operation Nice (operationnice.com), an initiative in which surfers tell stories about good things that others have done for them, with the goal of creating a kind of global network of positive vibes and universal brotherhood. Two similar blogs are the Spread Love Project (spreadloveproject.com) and Acts of Kindness (actsofkindness.org). Are these initiatives really capable of improving relations among people, or is this an empty, cloying way of clearing one's conscience? Ben Zeev said recent studies prove that positive emotions on the Internet have a real effect. "People use blogs and social networks in order to receive emotional support and to practice positive emotions," he said. "Ongoing textual relationships are formed in these places, and such relationships have significant potential for a positive connection. It turns out that textual relationships make a person better in reality as well. They make it possible to plan more things together and make people have more positive feelings in reality as well. A woman who tells a forum that she is divorcing her husband receives a great deal of support. And she releases this support into the world." Bookmark to del.icio.us   Forgotten peace French FM: I fear distracted world may forget Mideast peace process. Settlers vs. Shin Bet Daniela Weiss: Shin Bet behind attack on left-wing advocate prof. Sternhell.

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