San Diego Union Tribune, CA
04-19-07
Youths choose social-networking sites to share thoughts, feelings after tragedy
By Kathryn Balint
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Message boards proclaiming “I'm OK at VT” and “America stands in support of
Virginia Tech” began appearing on social-networking sites across the Internet
within hours Monday of the worst shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.
The hundreds of thousands of messages posted on blogs are evidence of the
shift in how America's youth communicates, with MySpace, Facebook and
LiveJournal the vehicles of choice for students to tell their stories, bear witness
and honor heroes.
icantread01 on LiveJournal, after hearing from his girlfriend, Kate, who had been
shot: The story goes that she was in class and they heard a banging, her teacher
opened the door to find out what was going on, and after not seeing anything,
closed the door. not more than two seconds later, a gunman entered her room, to
which the class responded by getting underneath the desks and basicly (sic)
hiding as well as possible from this guy. He then shot at the class somewhere
between 8 to 12 times and then left. Kate was hit in the hand by a stray bullet.
People from around the world have gathered at the social networking sites for
first-hand accounts from Virginia Tech students who survived the shooting that
left 33 people dead and to check on the safety of friends and family.
Ashley Pearson (Virginia Tech) on Facebook: If anyone hears anything about
Maxine Turner, please let me know. We have still not heard anything from her.
Maxine Turner was later confirmed to be a shooting victim.
“What you're looking at, I think, is the product of an age of kids raised on
technology,” said Larry Rosen, a psychology professor at California State
University Dominguez Hills whose book “Me, MySpace and I” will be published
this year.
“Their choice of communicating, unlike my generation's choice of communicating,
which might be face-to-face or television broadcasts or radio, is online social
networking. They get online, and they network. Everybody is able to get the
information by virtue of the fact that they have access. It's really where their
lifestyle is.”
Alongside the online messages of consolation and support are the venomous
scrawls of hatemongers and cranks. Not long after the gunman was identified as
Virginia Tech senior Cho Seung-Hui, 23, a South Korean raised in the United
States, Facebook was filled with racial slurs, profanity and other vile messages.
Seth Chado on Facebook: He should have been hung just like saddom (sic)
“Social network does many things that are good and proactive,” said Michael
Bugeja, a professor and director of the Greenlee School of Journalism and
Communication at Iowa State University. “But you're getting almost a
psychological profile of users who use one sort of discourse when they're online
and another sort of discourse when they are in person.”
Bugeja, author of “Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a
Technological Age,” argues in the book that modern technology has driven
civilization away from real communities.
He said that the anonymity of the Internet breeds sexist, racist and other hateful
comments, and that those could be particularly upsetting for those mourning the
Virginia Tech victims.
“You have to wade through an avalanche of words that may afflict you at a time
when you need comfort,” Bugeja said.
Shannon Hanchin (Virginia Tech) on Facebook: If I had gone to class today I
would have been directly across from Norris Hall – and perhaps even in the line
of fire. I pray for those who were directly involved. It's something I never thought
could happen here. Not here.
Bugeja said the only tried-and-true method of bringing comfort to the Virginia
Tech survivors is in person, as at the convocation, memorial services and
candlelight vigils that have been held at the university.
“The way Virginia Tech has done it is a story that has been much underplayed,”
Bugeja said. “I admire how that administration has taken people outdoors for
vigils, has brought them into stadiums for convocations and has brought
everyone together interpersonally to heal.”
The social networking sites bring together people who otherwise might be far
apart geographically.
Jasmine Tirado-Nordine on Facebook: My heart and my prayers go out to the
families of the victims and survivors of this sensless (sic) crime.
“If we can take any positive things from this, it's that what these new Internet
tools have been able to provide a way for these people to find each other in a
way they never could before,” said Jay Adelsen, co-founder and chief executive
of the social content site Digg.com. “That's one of the good things to come out of
social networking and the new media. But it has to come with a caution. This
information is raw, it's unedited, it's uncensored.”
The sites became especially important for the Virginia Tech students because
cell phones – their other major communications choice – were jammed as a
result of the high traffic.
Rosen said that e-mail – once the most popular form of communication among
teens – has been replaced by social networking sites in the past two years.
Virginia Tech officials sent an e-mail to the university's 36,000 students at 9:26
a.m., two hours after two students were shot dead in a dorm. The e-mail warned
that a “shooting incident” had occurred and that students should be cautious and
report anything suspicious.
Some students complained that not only was the e-mail sent too late – it arrived
about 20 minutes before the deaths of 31 people, including the gunman, at
another campus building – but that it did not reach some students. Students said
they would have preferred a text message sent to their cell phones.
“Things are changing in our world so rapidly,” Rosen said. “Just a couple of years
ago, an e-mail would have gotten to every student rapidly.”