Facebook is not 9-1-1

Technology is vastly growing, from robotic check-outs at the local grocery replacing personalized service to Twitter and Facebook being used to report our daily on-goings in the young demographic. But is it going to far? I came across an article in the Telegraph (a European news source), about two young girls using facebook as 9-1-1! I mean are you serious?

The two girls, ages 10 and 11, became trapped in a storm drain in Adelaide's southern suburbs of Australia. Storm drains are dangerous in the area due to the likeliness of flash flooding. Instead of calling for help (i.e. 911) the girls used their cell phones, (yep that's right they had cell phones and service!!!) to go on facebook and update their status for their friends. The girls were rescued 7:30 Sunday night thankfully because a friend read the status and realized it wasn't a joke. Glenn Benham, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Fire Service, put to light the question we're all thinking: 'If they had a cell phone why didn't they call 9-1-1???'

"If they were able to access Facebook from their mobile phones, they could have called 000 [the Australian equivalent of 999], so the point being they could have called us directly and we could have got there quicker than relying on someone being online and replying to them and eventually having to call us via 000 anyway," says Benham.

This is kind of similar to the whole fight with Black Eyed Peas member Will.i.Am and the celebrity blogger Perez Hilton. Who was confronted by Will.i.Am after the blogger said a number of not-so-nice things on his blog about the group and Fergie at the MuchMusic Video Awards. After some choice words from Hilton to Will.i.am, BEP's manager hit Perez and during the fight Perez chose to update his twitter saying:

"I was assaulted by Will.i.Am of the Black Eyed Peas and his security guards," Hilton wrote. "I am bleeding. Please, I need to file a police report. No joke."

Will.i.am walked away during the fight and it was in fact a fan that attacked Hilton at first and later on the group’s manager found him and clocked him.


I admit I don't have a personal twitter but I do update my facebook quite a bit. But come on now, in a state of emergency my first instinct would be to call some emergency service not update my status. Although the two girls in the Australian incident are young, they are definitely at an age where they should differentiate between updating your status and calling 911. They could've easily called the service and then told friends about it later. With the whole Perez thing his fans quickly came to his aid after he twittered it... but still. I don't know what to think at this whole deal. What are your thoughts?

Read the full article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/6155017/Trapped-girls-updated-Facebook-instead-of-calling-police.html

Trina[ ♥ ]

Remember to check out all our other entries down below! Don't miss a minute of all the fashion, gossip, and style! Just scroll down and click 'Older Posts' or take a look at our blog archive we have all the entries listed under the months we did them! We're going to have another Street Fashion segment coming soon so get to it and e-mail us your stylish looks at eternallyfixatedblog@hotmail.com or anything else you'd like to tell us. There's always room for improvement!