By Gilad for Social Flow
Impact of the internet
Remember when Twitter recently crashed for what felt like an eternity? It was more along the lines of a few hours, but in cyberspace, hours of silence can easily seem like a lifetime. Moral of the story: the internet has become more important than ever, and it’s important to acknowledge the growing sense of community. Enter Craigslist Joe.
In a documentary intended to prove the interconnectedness within social media, one man attempts to live off of Craigslist with no money, or contact with anyone he knows. His final goals? 1. Survive 2. Travel America.
You can expect to find us at the midnight premiere.
-Rachel
We all know Twitter is changing the game… we don’t exactly know how or on what level, but a clue can be found in what has happened with Cholera in Haiti. -TM
Article found at It’s Okay To Be Smart
Shortly after the 2010 earthquake and hurricane that struck the
country, Haiti was (and is) deeply immersed in an outbreak of cholera.
Amazingly, social networks accurately tracked the spread of the
disease, faster and more accurately than traditional tracking methods.
As Rumi Chunara of Harvard Medical School details in CHE:
The social media matched the official reports very closely right at
the start of the outbreak, in October 2010, and right after another
surge when the hurricane hit, in early November. But the reports were
ahead of the official records by two weeks. And with Twitter in
particular, they identified the geographic locations of the cases
“because a lot of people were Tweeting from their phones, right where
they saw patients” in villages, Ms. Chunara said. Not all cholera
patients go to hospitals to be counted officially, she noted.
It’s safe to assume that tracking a disease by social media alone
wouldn’t be perfect, and further studies will be required to prove
that this is a reliable method by which to base the distribution of
medicine and supplies. Even a few days advantage can make a huge
difference in an outbreak like this, though. By tracking real-time
data, patients could be located and catalogued before they even saw a
doctor.
(Photo by Ramon Espinosa)
An invitation to follow us
In the past few months, we have truly taken over all forms of social media.
With our recent Pinterest account creation, we are going to dominate the Internet. This is your formal invitation to follow/stalk us on all of them.
Instagram at invisiblechildren
