The other side of social media

Social media is flooded with trolls who do little else apart from abusing others, creating fake profiles, generating spambots and indulging in gossip mongering. However, the same social media also has countless users who help others by providing helpful suggestions and offering assistance in times of need. A single question on any topic can brings out scores of responses, most of the times.

Social media has even been known to save lives. There are stories about how people received warnings about natural disasters by tweets. In fact, Twitter even helped people by providing aid during natural disasters.

There was a report by

Reuters last year which said that doctors in Japan used Twitter to reach chronically-ill patients after the earthquake and tsunami, telling them where to go to get life-saving treatment after phone networks became unusable. “Doctors Yuichi Tamura and Keiichi Fukuda said they sent tweets to 60 patients to tell them where to obtain crucial daily refills of a drug to prevent heart failure when they realised they couldn't reach them by phone due to congestion or damage,” the report said.

Socialtimes.com reported that the IDF adopted a similar approach with their Search & Rescue Team inHaiti. “They opened up a new Twitter account specifically for updates about the Israeli delegation in Haiti, @IDFinHaiti. To their surprise, they started to get people tweeting them leads about where they could find trapped victims of the earthquake.”

What many people don't know is that even in India, Twitter is used to save lives by Bloodaid. Tweets are sent through the @bloodaid Twitter account. Almost all requests get several retweets, resulting in even complete strangers coming to offer blood and save lives.