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Would you use social media as a warning system?

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Face it: Social media is ubiquitous. (As you know, reading this information in a blog, possibly finding the link off of our Twitter feed– @oilandgasiq, if you’re interested.) What did we do before we could "like" every news story or beg high school crushes to help find our lost cow on Farmville?

But beyond helping us reconnect with old flames and alert our followers what we had for lunch, could social media such as Facebook and Twitter actually help users during an emergency?

Do you use its powers for good?"

Natural disaster experts seem to think so. In fact, last Friday they ran a Twitter drill, measuring how fast information could be spread in the event of an earthquake.

It’s important to spread information quickly and widely in the event of a disaster, and Twitter and other forms of social media might just be the way to do that.

Think about how much could have been done if people had advance warning about the BP Gulf oil spill?

Anyway, do you think using social media is an affective way to warn people in the event of a natural disaster? Do you think it could have helped with the BP oil spill? Or do you feel that the last thing that people want to do during a disaster is check their Twitter feeds?

By Jessica Livingston

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