Are we becoming a nation of angst prone, nail biting, whiny worriers? On the face of it a poll conducted by the Mental Health Foundation suggests we might be.

"Three-quarters of its respondents agreed that the world is scarier today than it was ten years ago, and that people are more frightened and anxious."

Jesus wept! This is not the nation that stood alone against the tyranny of Hitler, shrugging off the Blitz as if it were a minor irritant. The article does identify part of the problem though:

"...people are responding to the effects of an emotional arms race. Modern media-savvy governments realise that, with so many messages competing for the public’s attention—about benefit fraud, climate change, crime, drunkenness, obesity and terrorism—ramping up the fright factor is the easiest way to make sure individual messages get through. She compares a famous second world war poster that exhorted people to “keep calm and carry on” with modern warnings about smoking or junk food expressly designed to be as terrifying as possible."

That all echoes very strongly the thoughts of Frank Furedi in his book Invitation To Terrorexamines the rhetorical framework used by governments and opinion formers in the debate around the threat of terrorism. His argument is that the entire conceptual structure that arises from the language we use fuels a state of perpetual fear and anxiety.

At the same time, think-tank Demos is launching its Resilient Nation initiative this week. It looks into how prepared we are as a nation to deal with major incidents and has been foreshadowed in the press by a couple of articles, one in the Telegraph here and one in the Times here.

The study, Resilient Nation, calls on individuals to become more self resilient and prepared for disasters or emergencies and less reliant on the state although it stops short of advising the public "stockpile" reserves.

The report goes on to talk about how the majority of people live in concentrated urban areas where reliance on services and infrastructure is entrenched and disruption leaves people with no contingency. The report focuses on the impact of examples like the inclement weather we have had in recent years and our poor state of preparation for such events.

The report in the Times looks at the formation of volunteer force that would swing into action alongside emergency services when faced with such disasters, but also makes recommendations about how new social media and networking technology could be utilised to keep the public up to date in a crisis.

Second, all of us – departments, agencies, citizens, communities – need to learn how to harness the power of social networking sites. Twitter, for instance, may be seen by some as a pointless gossip forum, but it could in fact be an incredibly effective emergency management tool.

In America, the internet has already proved invaluable. The Los Angeles fire department has a blog that invites people to provide information on fires and other emergencies across the city. The fire teams also use Google to monitor key words such as “LA” and “fire”, which helps them to get instant reports on flare-ups and wind directions from tweeters. These reports from the ground are then relayed to the services.

As a result, the Los Angeles fire department has an army of citizens on whom it can call for support.

Interesting recommendations and I wholeheartedly support the need to look at this area more closely by the government, but also by citizens, who both share the same myopic view when it comes to crisis; we never even think about the ramifications of such crisis, as proven by the problems we had with the last set of floods which had such major knock on impacts, like the power outstation threatened down in the South West, or the reservoir that almost cracked and burst in South Yorkshire. There is so little contingency allowed for in the way we live these days and with increasingly integrated infrastructure means that when a crisis strikes, it has a ripple effect outwards into other areas. Look at how the countries traffic was almost brought to a halt a few years back by a handful of hauliers blockading the fuel depots for example.