There's a chart going around that looks at the 23,000 or so applications that have been developed for the Facebook social network, and the vast majority of them are dedicated to fun and games -- Super Pokes, Fun Walls, Zombies, and so on. But the networking site has a serious side as well: as a communications tool in emergencies, according to a recent study published in New Scientist magazine.
The study -- done by researchers at the University of Colorado who specialize in what's called "crisis informatics" -- found that Facebook and other "social media" tools such as Wikipedia and Twitter (a kind of group-chat instant messaging tool) did a better job of getting information out during emergencies such as the shootings at Virginia Tech and the forest fires that decimated California than either the traditional news media or government emergency services.
During the Virginia shootings, for example, the study found that the emergency service agencies were slow to update their reports on the latest situation at the technical college (where a gunman had opened fire on students in classrooms) and were also slow to update the names of those who had been killed. Within just 90 minutes of the first deaths, however, the New Scientist study says that a web page accurately describing the events had already appeared on Wikipedia and been updated several times.
The study also found that during the fires in California in October, contributors to various websites and those using Twitter were keeping their friends and neighbours informed of their whereabouts and of the location of various fires on a minute by minute basis. They also posted links to Google Maps with which others could track the progress of the fire and mark areas where schools and businesses were shut down as a result of the threat.
According to the study, the "mass media were unreliable... as they struggled to access remote areas from which website users with an internet connection could easily report. Media sites also focused on the 'sensational', such as fires close to celebrities' homes, which distorted the overall picture."
