At Least For One Extrovert, the Quake Was Earth Shaking

Copy Extrovert, Jamie Silverman reflects on the Great East Coast Quake of 2011. Just as I discovered in Rome back in 2009, the first real reverberations were felt online.

-Mark

Technical prowess, digital capability and Internet advancement have changed the way we experience and share news with one another. In olden days, people would sit down with a newspaper to learn the latest goings on (okay, so this is one trend that's still hanging by a thread for the moment – you get the point). But seriously, way back when, a man arriving on horseback shouting about what was going on over yonder in the next town used to be the expected mode of getting news. Word from abroad took weeks to arrive. Fast forward a few hundred years and we are receiving news updates up to the second. 

Why my current obsession with the news? Because of Tuesday's earthquake, that’s why. 

While sitting at my desk in the corner of the Extrovertic office, I felt the ground shake. I looked up and asked my coworkers if they felt anything. Once the tremors stopped, we all wanted to know if we truly had felt an earthquake or if it was all our imagination. So everyone tuned in to the local news websites.

I on the other hand, logged on to Facebook and Twitter.

Within minutes, I had received confirmation from the social-media sphere, that we had in fact experienced an earthquake of a 5.9 magnitude. Some of my favorite posts:

Credibility be damned, my first inclination was not to check out the New York Times or CNN.com, but rather to assume that the tweeters of the world would be the best source of information.

Though I do think Twitter, Facebook and the like are great sources of information, I have to wonder if it’s sort of a modern-day Wikipedia. Chock full of information, some of it credible, some not, all requiring an open mind and critical eye upon reading.

What do you think?

-Jamie