It seems that two preteen girls used a Facebook status message to alert family and friends that they had become trapped in a drain, raising the question of just how much social media is taking over our lives.

Two girls, aged 10 and 12-years-old, became trapped in an Adelaide, Australia drain last night around 7:30 p.m. local time according to Melbourne’s Herald Sun.

After the girls had become trapped, they used one of their mobile phones to update their status message on Facebook, the extremely popular social network.  Once a friend saw the message, the Metropolitan Fire Service was alerted and used ladders to rescue the two girls from their predicament.  Ambulance crews were on the scene, but were not needed as both girls emerged without any injuries.

Many people are questioning why the girls used their Facebook status message to alert people to their situation as opposed to calling the Australian emergency numbers of 000 or 112.  As some commenters have pointed out at the original newspaper story, they may have been out of credit on the phone, and Facebook is allowed even in those situations, but at the same time the emergency numbers would also be free to use.

In a panic situation they may not have been thinking clearly, but it is intriguing they turned to navigating a social network as opposed to calling an emergency number, texting a friend or calling a family member.  Is this a comment on how ingrained social networking is becoming in our society, or is it just a total non-story of they had free access to the social network on their network?  It is also possible the dire nature of their situation wasn’t quite as bad as it sounds, and they figured why not just go that route to get the information out.

All that can be said, if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, just call the emergency numbers that are used in your country.

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Entry was posted on Monday, September 7th, 2009 at 3:01 pm under Opinion, Social Media.

Read more entries by Sean P. Aune.
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