Social media spurs character-building acts of kindness

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 17 April 2013 | 16.30

In the chaotic aftermath of Monday's fatal marathon bombings, Jarrett Goetz was on his way to his South End home when a friend called and asked if Goetz would give him, his girlfriend and a stranded runner they had found a ride.

Goetz did, and was on his way home, again, when he saw two sisters — also marathoners — who looked cold and lost, and offered to give them a ride and spare jackets he kept in the trunk of his Land Rover.

By the time he finally arrived home some four hours after he left work, he had given rides to five runners, two marathon volunteers and one bystander, updating his Facebook status about it along the way.

By last night, 237 of his friends had "liked" it and many had offered to give people rides themselves or places to spend the night.

"It was a chain reaction of free taxi services," said Goetz, 37, who works for a technology startup. "But really, it's about grace under pressure. You've got to put yourself in other people's shoes and rise to the occasion. And if you do it, it makes you feel good and inspires others to do the same."

And so it went on social media Monday, as the news outlet of first resort for many morphed into a mirror of the soul.

Twitter saw 180-day peaks in use of the words "donate," "volunteer" and "help" as people heralded the heroic first responders at the scene of the two fatal bombings and searched for ways they could be of use themselves.

"What was really great was word spread very quickly, so that people were able to slow and stop marathoners from running into what was essentially a war zone," said David Gerzof Richard, professor of social media and marketing at Emerson College.

Afterward, Google set up a Boston Marathon Explosions page in Google Person Finder to help people look for and find loved ones who might be missing.

New England Patriots wide receiver Danny Amendola tweeted that he'll donate $100 for every reception and $200 for every drop in the 2013 season to a Boston Marathon relief fund.

And then there was the dark side of social media in the form of a Twitter account with the handle @_BostonMarathon, which claimed it would donate $1 to victims of the explosions for every retweet it received. The account racked up more than 65,000 retweets before Twitter suspended it.

"I don't know what their motives were," Gerzof Richard said, "but it takes a lot for Twitter to turn someone's account off. You have to do something atrocious."


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