Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms
I lived through a major natural disaster that left me an evacuee for months. Facebook&#x27;s safety check is the <i>only</i> reason I haven&#x27;t killed my account and I&#x27;ve said this before in prior comments here on Hacker News.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=14412146" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=14412146</a><p>Thank god the author hasn&#x27;t lived through an event where <i>everybody</i> you know is affected by the event. The ability to say &quot;I&#x27;m okay&quot;, say it once, and have everybody you know on FB see it is a huge stress reducer. It cuts back on the number of &quot;are you okay?&quot; messages you receive during the event when you may not have a lot of battery or a lot of spare brain to dedicate to answering lots of bullshit inquiries.<p>If he&#x27;s feeling stressed out because of FB opening the &quot;I&#x27;m okay&quot; service in that small area for that catastrophic fire, he&#x27;s being a self centered jerk. I guarantee that FBs service is helping some poor soul mixed up in that mess.<p>Edit: The Facebook safety check feature is not unique to Facebook. In many ways it mimics Japan&#x27;s disaster message board feature. Every teleco in Japan offers this service:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nttdocomo.co.jp&#x2F;english&#x2F;info&#x2F;disaster&#x2F;disaster_board&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nttdocomo.co.jp&#x2F;english&#x2F;info&#x2F;disaster&#x2F;disaster_b...</a><p>I really think the author has lived too lucky a life in a place that has not suffered overmuch from disasters. He can&#x27;t see beyond his own narrow vision.