Earthquakes scaring the tweets out of us

Like Molly said… I’m not procrastinating. My other work has actually led me back to my blog… For my science class I’ve been looking up recent earthquakes and volcanic activity. In multiple articles, I read about people “tweeting” about earthquakes….just moments after they’ve hit.

NYtimes.com…after a 4.1 earthquake –

“Ms. Evans, who is the owner of Sevans Strategy, a public relations strategy firm that guides companies on how to use Twitter and other social media, said she then reached for heriPhone and posted a message on Twitter. ‘Seriously weird,’ she wrote. ‘Something that felt like a minor quake just woke us up. Can anyone else in the CHI area/burbs confirm?’

Soon, she said, many people were trading information about the quake through the forum.”

I went on to twitter and typed the message in myself, to make sure it actually fit and could have been the accurate post. It’s less than 140 characters. I’m glad Ms.Evans could communicate with her Twitter followers, and talk about an exciting natural event… but did she really need a confirmation from others on her iphone, to believe she really just felt a small earthquake? Okay, maybe she wasn’t positive exactly what it was… but she knew she felt something, period. In fact, she described the whole house shaking, as if a train just blew by. She didn’t need anyone to confirm THAT for her.

Los Angeles Times…after a 6.0 earthquake:

“On Twitter, some residents said they felt a sharp jolt, but they added that it did not feel as strong as the January quake.”

You might think after feeling an earthquake and questioning its origins, one might call to make sure family and friends are okay. Instead, people are instantaneously reaching for their cell phones and interacting with an electronic version of “friends”… people they may not even know.