One of the most talked about issues these days is Friday’s devastating earthquake and its consequences. Social media are not an exception – recent events in Japan are one of the most common issues mentioned on these sites. I found an interesting article on Mashable about how Facebook users reacted to the news about the earthquake and events happening afterwards.

As the article states, on March 11 there have been 4.5 million status updates from 3.8 million users from all around the world including words ‘Japan’, ‘earthquake’ or ‘tsunami’. On the site is also an interesting animation showing the map of the world and animation on when and where postings about Japanese natural disaster were published. Beside being the platform for sharing the most recent news and reports on the events, expressing condolence and sympathies with the affected, was Facebook also among the quickest tools to use to get in touch with people in the areas affected by the natural disaster.

Source: mashable.com

 

Also days after the earthquake many posts on Facebook include Japan and topic’s related to it. Beside the above-mentioned reasons people now use Facebook also for making donations for the people in devastated areas.

Similar situation was also on Twitter where reaction the earthquake was immediate and rapidly trending – not only around the world but also in Japan. There have been around 1200 tweets per minute coming from Tokio. Twitter played even more important role – in the published tweets were posted estimated times of when the tsunami was about to hit the US coast. The estimations were published even before the official government warning was released.

In the event of the Japanese earthquake social media played prominent role – not only for sharing news and reports on what is going on in Japan, but also for getting in touch with people affected by the disaster after phone system knocked down. And they may play even greater role in following what is going on these days and the following days after the consequences of the earthquake are still about to reveal. General public worldwide seems to be doubting whether official governmental reports and reports coming from the nuclear plants are true and honest therefore they might trust more postings on social media coming from people being in the middle of happening.