Natural Disasters Can Spawn New Social Networks
As Hurricane Florence gains strength every hour of the day it seems, our social media networks can often be forgotten as a useful resource in the struggle to prepare for the unpredictable. This makes logical sense as it is only natural for people to spend time offline packing their bags or boarding up their house. My own family, as we and the rest of our state brace for a direct hit, has witnessed this with our neighbors and friends. However, as discussed in the link below, social media outlets are actually becoming life-saving tools in the wake of powerful Hurricanes.
In my home state of North Carolina, our Governor (Roy Cooper) and his team have reached out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. to try and spread the word of how to prepare. He is attempting to create connections (edges) between nodes (people) who may not necessarily understand what to do or how to prepare. At the same time, creating these new ties between citizens can also lead to increased communication with the help of the strong triadic closure property. People with strong ties (and knowledge of how to respond to a Hurricane) to the Governor’s office are reaching out to other citizens seeking help and advice through these social media platforms. Since there is a strong tie between the Governor’s office and the citizen with Hurricane recovery knowledge and the citizen seeking Hurricane relief, a weak or strong tie must exist and is thus created between the two citizens.
As Mark Zuckerberg writes, “When disasters happen, people need to know their loved ones are safe. It’s moments like this that being able to connect really matters.” Whether it is to communicate recovery information or to assure loved ones, creating and maintaining edges between nodes of people are important and sometimes lifesaving. In times like this, helping people can have the added benefit of growing social networks which has the possibility of flourishing once the natural disaster is over.
(I also included some personal experience along with the link to an article, hope that is alright)
Link: https://collectivebias.com/blog/2017/10/social-media-natural-disaster/