Recently I have heard a number of people either imply or outright say that the internet is a waste of time. The message being, that if you spend time on the internet you are missing out on the real world and are losing the social skills required to operate in every day life. Often this sentiment is aimed at Facebook and social media in general, and in some extreme cases it may well be true.
However, people who don’t understand the potential applications of social media are missing the power it holds in times of crisis. The obvious example at the moment being the QLD Floods.
Through social media, people are coordinating rescue efforts and donating time and money in a way that could never be organised through traditional media. A quick look at the amazing Meshel Laurie’s twitter account (@Meshel_Laurie) shows how one person can coordinate information and pass it on to a huge audience.
Using Twitter, she has coordinated rescue efforts for stranded horses, relayed information on available stables and land as well as alerted people to organisations that require volunteers including the Fairfield RSPCA who were inundated with volunteer foster carers for animals.
Sometimes people are the best.
People are using social media to relay information from areas where other lines of communication are down, for example Caboolture and Morayfield where phone lines are down. Offers of assistance are being relayed in these areas through a Facebook group Caboolture Shire and Surrounding Suburbs Floods. It’s because of Facebook that I know that cut off members of my own family are okay despite having no phones and being surrounded by floodwaters.
Information on supplies and road closures is also being relayed through Twitter and Facebook, with many people volunteering boats and trucks to get supplies to those in need.
These kinds of efforts are possible because of people who know how to use social media. More often than not, social media is used to share pictures of cats and that video of the little girl crying over Tony Blair’s retirement. However, sometimes it proves to be invaluable. Everyone has at least one friend that doesn’t “get” Twitter. Next time they give you an earful about what a waste of time it is, show them the below picture.
Social media was used to coordinate the rescue of 18 little guys like these from a paddock near Caboolture. They would have drowned otherwise.
If you can donate anything to the Flood Appeal, please do www.qld.gov.au/floods
