The Power of Facebook: Is Social Media Helping More Than We Could Have Predicted?

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A woman has been using Facebook to find the people who stayed to help her brother after he was involved in a serious car crash. Stacey Boyle has been desperately asking that we all share her post as she is convinced that Facebook will have the power to reunite her with the women who saved her sibling's life.

After the post having over 81,000 shares in just a couple of days, names were found and the siblings hoped to get in contact with them as soon as possible. Stacey said in a comment that the two women, Jo and Victoria, were "genuinely humble people". She is grateful that her family is safe and able to thank them in person for the good they have done.

Other cases like these have existed, showing once again that with enough determination Facebook and social media in general can have a huge amount of power. As well as posting on their own timelines, people are creating Facebook pages to find missing relatives or friends. They ask people to like and share these pages as much as possible with the hope of finding their loved ones. Many people even use this to find their biological parents, or siblings.

A more famous example is the page supporting the ongoing search for Madeleine McCann. Even though she disappeared in 2007, the page was updated with new contact information on Monday, should anyone see her. Over 600,000 people like the page. It makes sense, everyone is linked to social media in some shape or form, so it is understandable that this would be the most common way to reach people. Thanks to social media we are able to communicate across the world, I know I do. If we are able to do that in a few clicks, imagine how much more we could do with social media.

People have questioned why the police don't use Facebook as a way to find criminals more. A page was made a little over a year ago now, helping people retrieve stolen things. It was created by a man in Hawaii, Mike Kitchens, who describes it as "a neighbourhood watch for the entire state of Hawaii". He goes on to say that their Police Department often post photos of wanted people.

Tracey Jelly on Facebook posted about a memory card that she had found. She was hoping to find the owner as the card seemed to be filled with family memories. In fact she said that a camera had been found at the bottom of a pond. She knows how long it has been there for as the last pictures taken of the family were in 2014. Who knew that memory cards were waterproof! Luckily, the post was shared over 900 times and the owners were quickly found. The card is half way to its owners by now, full of memories ready to be relived.

Even more from the heart-warming stories, a veteran who saved a young girl during Hurricane Katrina 10 years ago, was reunited with her. Master Sgt Michael Moroney had finally been able to tell LeShay Brown, how much their hug 10 years ago had helped him. A few tears were shed. Once again social media was responsible for this.

It goes to show that this is definitely an upcoming and growing concept that I believe we have to let happen. It has done so much good around the world, and if we keep it going and stay connected who knows what we can achieve. Social media has been criticised hugely over the years, but no one can deny the power that it has today.

Sophie Giscard

One of the newest members of The SMF Group. Although she loves a good city life, she grew up in the beautiful French countryside. Who knew that talking to a bunch of cows and friendly chickens would get her here? Quite used to writing stories in her bedroom, she is now deciding if she's cut out for content writing. We'll see! Follow her @SophieAtSMF

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