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Good Job, Facebook
Friday 22nd June 2012 | Osh
At last, a story that proves Facebook to be good for something. Normally reserved for finding out your ex is ‘having the time of their life’ with their new – better, fitter, funnier – girl/boy friend, or revealing that your mum has a better social life than you, Facebook now can be said to save lives. Well, one life. The life of Hannah Craig of Tampa Bay. Craig was suffering from kidney failure when she signed up for Facebook’s new organ donation registry system, a system which 100,000 users have already signed up for. Despite the large number of responses Craig received, it was a family friend who came forward with the right blood match and offered to donate a kidney to Craig despite not have spoken in over two years.
This is not the first social networking success however, and in 2011 Twitter acted as saviour for a girl whose mum needed a kidney. Also, America’s version of Gumtree, Craigslist, received over 800 responses for a woman in need of a donor. So, Nan was wrong, not all technology is bad. Although many of us regard Facebook as a means to record what type of soup we ate for lunch, if it can save a life or two along the way then I think we can forgive it for its occasional mundanity.
Craig said to reporters, “Thank you Mark Zuckerberg, you know, to Facebook, for having that social network around to inspire transplants and stories.”
Somebody give that man a raise… no wait, he’s already a billionaire.
Laura Tucker
