According to a local news source in Missouri, families have begun to use social media to locate missing people. This article discusses how social media outlets–Facebook in particular–are being used to locate the missing after natural disasters. The article goes on to describe the different instances of how Facebook is being used to attempt to locate the missing. The first case is about Will Norton, who was on his way home with his father from Joplin High School’s graduation ceremony, was sucked out of the sunroof of their Hummer H3 when Sunday’s tornado hit and has not been seen since.
About 28,000 people have since supported the “Help Find Will Norton” page on Facebook. Recent posts by Presslor reveal the frustration of a family that cannot find a child. A post on Wednesday afternoon listed the hospitals that already have been checked for the teen. Another post said the family was attempting to track his cellphone in hopes of determining his location.
I see this use of social media as being a very positive one. As “bad” as the Internet may seem at times, when it comes to natural disasters or some other type of catastrophe, the Internet seems to be the perfect tool in helping spread large quantities of information through the right channels. When the earthquake hit Haiti a few months ago and the damage was extreme, Twitter was one of the most useful tools for reporting information and posting images of the damage done to the country. I think using Facebook to locate missing individuals makes a lot of sense and has the potential to be extremely helpful in the future.
