When a lot of people think of stalkers, they think of the extremes - the mentally unbalanced stalkers of celebrities (Jodie Foster, Michael Douglas, Anna Kournikova and others have been targets) or the violent obsessive who makes the news by eventually murdering their victim (as in cases such as those of Clare Bernal, Rana Faruqui and Tania Moore).
However, stalking is usually a lot less extreme and a lot more common than they might think. Some have estimated that as many as one in ten people have experienced stalking at some point, with the majority of perpetrators being men and the majority of victims being women. The reasons for stalking vary and so does the degree of the person's actions.
With the popularity of sites such as facebook, myspace, bebo etc, it seems that the line between stalking and being an enthusiastic social networker are becoming more and more blurred. Cyberstalking is often harder to spot than ordinary stalking because the perpetrator's actions are able to go undetected and it is debatable as to whether it is really stalking if the information was posted online for the purpose of other people seeing it.
I think that all stalking is an invasion of privacy that can have long-lasting and serious effects on the victims. There is a lot of grey area in terms of what constitutes stalking - I think perhaps if someone is reluctant to admit to things they've done (e.g. how much time they spend looking at a person's facebook page) then this could be a cause for concern.
A news report on stalking statistics: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4733023.stm
A recent article on stalking: http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/crime-courts/living-in-fear-hidden-crime-that-is-taking-a-terrifying-grip-on-society-1.1012084
Cyberstalking: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/378373.stm
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