Have you ever received an email that either directly asks you, or you feel you might want to, send a copy to one or more people, or even to "everyone" in your addressbook? If it is just something entertaining or inspirational, fine; go ahead send it on. But if contains some factual sounding information, is a warning, promises a benefit, and suggests or directly requests you to forward it to others, it almost certainly is a hoax.
Take, for example, this one entitled "How to Survive a Heart Attack", which ends with this imperative: "Tell as many other people as possible about this, it could save their lives!" Now, doesn't this make you want to forward it to everyone you know? But, is this thing true or not? Are you being helpful or gullible? How do you check it out?
Because of the enormous proliferation of false rumors, urban legends, and Internet hoax messages, several excellent web sites have appeared which investigate each hoax message, and report the truth. One of the best is www.snopes.com .
Just select a unique word from the suspect message and enter it into the search window. For example, place the following in the search window:
"it has come to our attention that we are vastly"
For an excellent synopsis of why it is important to discern the truth in our lives, see this URL: www.truthorfiction.com/lessons.htm . You can view Internet hoax messages as kind of a test for life. If you can be hoodwinked on the Internet, you can be hoodwinked anywhere. If you develop wisdom on the Internet, it could carry over to life in general.