“Please pray like never before, my 2 yr old fell in the pool.”
Five hours after sending the tweet, Shellie’s child, Bryson, was declared dead.
While countless numbers of blogs and Twitter users have expressed outrage at the incident, let’s examine two main questions that could arise due to the story.
First, is something as personal as a child’s death worth reporting or sharing on the Twitter platform? Many users, especially lifestreamers and life bloggers, tweet personally-focused messages. Death of family members or other close friends are not necessarily something that I would be inclined to share to my Twitter following—obviously, there is a grief process that goes on well outside of any social network.
Since the incident, Shellie Ross has protected her updates from the public.
It’s possible that people got the impression she really didn’t care about her son: “Remembering my million dollar baby” doesn’t necessarily come off as a heartfelt tweet, even though the message is generally positive.
Second, this story should push the point home: does Twitter really take precedence over other important things in your life? Sure, there is the occasional Twitter addiction tweet in my stream—but maybe we should take this story and really examine personally how often we are on the social networking website.
If Twitter is cutting into your time spent with family and friends in real life, perhaps it’s time to reconsider how often you are on the site.
Obviously, this is a sad and extremely unfortunate story. What are your thoughts on this story? Will you approach Twitter any differently as a result of it? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
It's hard to believe...but it does remind me of the Japanese pet craze when people would crash their cars because they were busy feeding their Tomigochi pets. It's really easy to get disconnected and distracted these days with all the gadgets we carry around with us.
I would agree that it's easily to get disconnected and distracted, which makes me wonder if incidents like this one will be more common in the future. It's a scary thought, but social media certainly has the ability to divert our attention.
Mom Tweets As Son Drowns: A Twitter Misuse?
Two days ago, Shellie Ross (@Military_Mom) tweeted as her child drowned in a pool.
“Please pray like never before, my 2 yr old fell in the pool.”
Five hours after sending the tweet, Shellie’s child, Bryson, was declared dead.
While countless numbers of blogs and Twitter users have expressed outrage at the incident, let’s examine two main questions that could arise due to the story.
First, is something as personal as a child’s death worth reporting or sharing on the Twitter platform? Many users, especially lifestreamers and life bloggers, tweet personally-focused messages. Death of family members or other close friends are not necessarily something that I would be inclined to share to my Twitter following—obviously, there is a grief process that goes on well outside of any social network.
Since the incident, Shellie Ross has protected her updates from the public.
It’s possible that people got the impression she really didn’t care about her son: “Remembering my million dollar baby” doesn’t necessarily come off as a heartfelt tweet, even though the message is generally positive.
Second, this story should push the point home: does Twitter really take precedence over other important things in your life? Sure, there is the occasional Twitter addiction tweet in my stream—but maybe we should take this story and really examine personally how often we are on the social networking website.
If Twitter is cutting into your time spent with family and friends in real life, perhaps it’s time to reconsider how often you are on the site.
Obviously, this is a sad and extremely unfortunate story. What are your thoughts on this story? Will you approach Twitter any differently as a result of it? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.