The Power of Social Media and Networking

This morning I woke up as I do everyday: my alarm rang, I got out of bed, turned my alarm off, grabbed my BlackBerry, and hopped back into bed to read the news. I was startled to find a story on CNN.com about a shooting that occurred early this morning at Ohio State University.

The story was not listed under the “latest news” section of CNN.com which definitely surprised me. Rather, the story was listed among other stories about events unfolding or that had already happened in the United States. In addition, the story provided very little information ((it has been updated since I first saw it this morning and now includes more information)) about what actually happened early this morning.

While the story did originally say that no students were involved in the shooting, it was a scary thing for me to read, for two reasons. The first reason is the most obvious, I am a college student and am fully aware that something this terrifying can occur on my college campus at anytime.  The second reason that this article frightened me was because I have a good friend  from high school that attends Ohio State University.

Thats when it hit me! I realized if I wanted to know more about the Ohio State University shooting, I could get in contact with my friends who attend the university. I felt that it was still too early in the morning to call my friend, who actually happens to be my neighbor at home, so instead I logged into Facebook.

I would have logged into Twitter to see if she had Tweeted something about the shooting, but I know she does not have a Twitter account, so Facebook appeared to be my best option. As soon as I logged into Facebook, I found my friend’s page with the following as her Facebook status: “two rapes and a shooting all in one week, keeping it classy at the Ohio State.”

While her status did not tell me anything further about the shooting that had occurred, it did tell me that two rapes had occurred on the campus in the past week. This was a fact that the CNN.com article failed to write about.

As today went by, I frequently checked into CNN.com to learn more about the shooting. I eventually got all of the information I needed. But, I am writing this blog after learning something more than the details of the Ohio State University shooting; I learned that social networking and social media are extremely powerful in the act of disseminating information quickly. None of the news articles that I read discussed the two rapes at the university. I would not have known about these rapes if it were not for my friend’s Facebook status. I now truly believe, social networking sites can really educate and inform us.