When I ran to grab coffee this afternoon, I had my first moment to think about something other than deadlines. A thought popped into my head: How would 9/11 have been different if there were social media channels?
My stomach turned just thinking about it. I had a Blackberry in 2001, but we weren’t even texting, let alone posting thoughts and images to the many sites we use to chronicle our daily lives. That day, and in the weeks that followed, we relied heavily on television news for updates.
Then this post appeared in my newsfeed. It beautifully captures what I was thinking. These lines really resonated:
“It was all so raw, so terrifying—and it was all so analog.
After all, this was three years before Facebook, four years before YouTube, five years before Twitter, six years before the iPhone, and nine years before Instagram. So there were no anguished tweets or status updates from those trapped on the upper floors of the Twin Towers. There were no color-filtered smartphone pictures of the burning buildings, uploaded in real time onto Instagram. There was no destined-to-go viral YouTube video from al-Qaeda, claiming credit for the atrocities.”
On 9/11, I had lived in Hoboken for about 16 months. I never felt connected to my community — like I was just passing through while working in Manhattan — until that day, when we lost 57 of our neighbors. We helped each other get back across the Hudson River that afternoon. We took turns having sleepovers so no one would be alone. We shared meals together. We attended memorial services and candlelight vigils. We cried together. And we walked quietly and slowly beside one another to the train station on the first day back to work in Manhattan. I have thought many times over the years how grateful I am for the role my community played in helping through the tragedy. And, like the post’s author, I am particularly thankful there was no Facebook or Twitter in 2001.
Have you thought about how social media would have changed your experience that day?