Social media can be used for good, and not just to procrastinate, an article in the New York TImes proved. With Hurricane Sandy, social media has been an effective way of communicating for public officials. With millions of people without power, Twitter and Facebook have been some of the only ways that people have been able to see what was going on with others. The article said that public officials were even using Pinterest to reach out to people.
I think that this was such a great way to use a way of communicating that is at the hands of so many people. If there were any emergency messages that needed to be conveyed to the public, social media sites were an excellent way to do so. So many people have negative opinions about social media, but this is a great argument that it is extremely useful.
The article also said that this is the first storm where social media was used to this great of an extent. These really reflects on how the times are changing and how society is keeping up with new technology.
It also allows public officials to be more personable and reachable. Usually aides update public officials’ tweets and Facebook statuses, however during this storm, the actual public officials were the ones reaching out to the public.
It was a great demonstration of how new technology can be used for the betterment of a terrible situation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/technology/in-crisis-public-officials-embrace-social-media.html?ref=us