Facebook instead of 911?

Now I am all up for new and innovative ways to communicate but ####!!!

I read this article from techradar.com from this past weekend where two children were trapped in a storm drain in South Australia and rather than call "000", their version of 911 they updated their Facebook status to tell people what was going on.

The children, ages 10 and 12, were probably out being kids when they got in trouble. I am also probably sure that somewhere along the way their parents, relatives, school teachers, etc.. told them that if they were in trouble to call "000" to talk emergency services, not update their status on Facebook. IF this does not raise an eyebrow with you, parents and everyone else out there someone is living under a rock.

Now I believe in technology and work with it everyday to try to help people to better integrate it into their lives but this may have gone to far. It took more time to update Facebook than it would have for the children to call emergency services. We live in an ever changing society that offers our children technological advances that we as adults over the age of 30 never had growing up. But we still have to instill in our children, and I bet their parents did that afternoon, there are certain things you do when you are in an emergency situation... and it is not to update your Facebook status.

Some of you may be angry at the statements but as the MFS (Metropolitan Fire Service )spokesperson said "If they were able to access Facebook from their mobile phones, they could have called 000, so the point being they could have called us directly and we could have got there quicker than relying on someone being online and replying to them and eventually having to call us via 000 anyway."