166) Signs of the Times

Two different signs of these social media times for you today, both involving Twitter.

1) On Monday, a California earthquake prediction tweet went viral, sending those in SoCal already suffering from record breaking heat into a frenzy.


The ALL CAPS warning directed people to an "scientific" looking website that a major 6.0-7.0 quake was predicted to hit Southern California on September 30. The real science community eventually called out the warning as a hoax, but not before the forecast was retweeted thousands of times over. The Twitter handle @Quakeprediction is still broadcasting its warning (now an urgent 24 HOUR EARTHQUAKE WARNING), and those unaware continue to retweet it.

2) Tuesday's terrifying University of Texas at Austin shooter incident put the campus on lockdown. Fortunately, students used Facebook and Twitter to communicate with those off-campus, and to keep informed on the situation. In fact, some only learned about the shooter when they snuck onto Facebook during lecture.

Sometimes for better, other times for worse, information spreads with the quickness.

(Mini aside - posts for the past few days have been pretty eh. Between the Craigslisting, packing, spackling and cleaning, there's been little time for deep thinking and post formulating. I move out of my apartment tomorrow, so hopefully there'll be more love for the blog then.)