Twitter saves lives? Last Tuesday, triathlete Leigh Fazzina took a wrong turn during a race. When her bike hit some roots, she crashed. The damage was severe–her helmet flew off, and her bike was crushed. She “was out of wind, in pain, [and the] sun [was] setting.” After screaming for help, and getting no response, she found that although her BlackBerry didn’t have enough signal to make a call, it did have enough to connect to the internet and send instant messages. Enter Twitter. 

Leigh sent out SOS tweets from Farmington, CT, asking her network of roughly 1000 to contact the authorities for her. She quickly followed up with another tweet letting everyone know that it wasn’t a joke and that she really needed help. According to the article I read on NBCConnecticut.com, Leigh began getting help from her followers within seconds. A woman in California got a hold of rescuers and led them to the trails where Leigh was waiting. 

Throughout the whole experience, Leigh continued to tweet her progress to her followers. She even took a video with her BlackBerry of the rescue that she later posted on YouTube, and blogged about the whole experience after the fact. 

A lot of people are skeptical about the benefits of social media, arguing that creating such elaborate networks online actually keeps us from real world relationships. That it separates people from each other. For instance, there’s a trend with young people interacting with friends through Facebook more than in person, even when they’re minutes away. However, the other side of the argument is that social networks actually make the world smaller, benefiting us by connecting us with people from all over the world. Leigh Fazzina was saved by a woman 2500 miles away because of Twitter, when she couldn’t find help from someone in the same city. I wonder which side she’s on… 

What do you think? Do the pros of social media outweigh the cons?