by Aubrey Jill I. Ledesma
The rise of Internet has made transactions easier, but through social media, we have found ways to connect with each other through the use of our SNS accounts. Technically, it has become an essential tool for communication in the past years; not only in entertainment, commerce and education, but also in disaster preparedness and response.
Role of Social Media in Disaster Preparedness
Social media reduces the burden of a disaster. It lifts our responsibilities not only as an individual, but also as a part of a family who should keep every family member safe. Also, as residents we are really ought to help the neighboring areas if there are troubles. Specially, the government and social workers, that have a big responsibility since they do not only aid the welfare of their families but also the community.
However, the possibility of saving more lives usually happen due to the application of social media in real life tragedies:
1. Detects early warning signs
2. Informs the public about disaster preparedness.
3. Monitors messages of public authorities.
4. Communicates with other organizations involved in disaster management.
5. Monitors messages of humanitarian organizations.
6. Informs the public during disaster response and recovery.
7. Generates community engagement activities
8. Organizes donation or fundraising events after a disaster.
This has proved how social media can be powerful in so many ways. However, if we’re about to measure the number of natural disasters and its mortality rate by decade, it is clear that it provides a significant relationship.
Table 1 : Number of recorded natural disaster events, all natural disasters
Table 2: Number of global annual deaths from natural disasters
You can observe that overtime, as natural disasters rapidly occur; its annual death is also slowing down. Perhaps it is because of the massive and alert response team that has become advanced due to the appropriate use of social media platforms. Thus, it can be viewed that the number of natural disaster is inversely proportional to the number of annual deaths from natural disasters.
Role of Social Media in Disaster Response
source: SRC, Government of Odisha
Aside from disaster preparedness, social media also aids the disaster response and recovery. We have almost completed signing up all SNS accounts that we tend to forget its purpose during modern day crisis.
Here are some uses of social media applications during a disaster:
1. Google – This is a huge platform wherein you can monitor and be aware of a situation as well as identifying those who are safe and at risks.
2. Facebook – A social communication platform in which you’ll be updated to sudden turn of events of other people’s Facebook posts and stories.
3. LinkedIn – The world’s largest professional network on the internet. It disseminates information in a clearer scope and view of opinions on what is happening.
4. Twitter – An app that monitors all the events that are happening around the globe by using hashtags as an indicator. It can be updated easily and performs an interactive response to the audience.
5. WhatsApp – The app lets you make calls, send and receive messages, documents, photos, and videos to anyone as long as you are connected to phone’s cellular data or Wi-Fi connection.
You see, social media sites have become the best platform to seek for help and lend a helping hand. It is amazing how these apps are quite mature and have the potential to be very useful in disaster situations.
We are always using some of the mentioned apps, but we have never been out of our comfort zones. Everyone is listening to various events that are happening in the world, but some are only speaking up. Through this, we will be able to save and protect everyone from any possible harm that can occur anytime.
Although, it is funny to say that the excessive use of any digital devices can cause harm to anyone, still, this kind of innovation has saved some of us from deep misery.
As we scroll through or social media newsfeeds, may we help others who are struggling to connect their sufferings for the world to hear.
Stay Safe!
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