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Newswise BUFFALO, N.Y. Using social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to spread information during campus emergencies can help keep students safer, according to new research from the University at Buffalo School of Management.

The study, published in the International Journal of Business Information Systems, found the widespread popularity of social media and associated mobile apps enables campus authorities to instantly reach a large percentage of students to provide timely and accurate information during crisis situations.

Research suggests that students are more likely to comply with emergency notifications received through social networking channels, says lead author Wencui Han, a PhD student in the School of Management. Social media also allows two-way communication. Campus officials can respond to concerns and provide more detailed instructions, and users can add and share content, helping information spread more rapidly.

The authors also note the most popular social media sites are free to use, making it cost effective for universities to build pages and monitor activity across multiple social channels.

Interacting with students on social media imposes a cost in terms of devoting critical manpower, but if universities develop strategies for managing various social platforms for different types of incidents, they can better prepare students during emergencies, says co-author Raj Sharman, PhD, associate professor of management science and systems in the School of Management. For example, Twitter is appropriate for updating real-time information, while Facebook is effective for wide notification because of its massive user base, especially among students.

A high-res downloadable photo of Sharman is available here: http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2015/02/028.html.

The researchers surveyed high-level campus safety managers from 183 universities that do not yet have social networking accounts in place for emergency situations such as criminal incidents, natural disasters or health-related crises. They found that campuses with higher incident rates used a greater number of traditional notification channels including television, radio, alarms, and email and text message alerts and were more likely to consider adopting social-networking services for emergency-notification purposes.

Social media does have limitations, however. The researchers caution that other users may post misleading information, or students may not subscribe to certain channels. As such, they recommend universities continue to deploy traditional methods as their primary notification system and use social media to provide supplemental information.

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Social Media Can Help Alert Students During Campus Emergencies, Study Finds

I'll use any excuse to break out this image again.

Aurich Lawson

You didn't think Facebook spent $2 billion on virtual reality company Oculus just to dip its feet into the next unproven frontier in video games, did you? No, the massive company has reconfirmed that it is interested in bringing its core social networking apps to VR in the future, to let users share 360 virtual views of what they're doing, for example.

At the Code/Media conference in California last night, Facebook Chief Product Officer Chris Cox responded to a question about "the one thing you haven't accomplished yet that you'd really like to figure out," by saying "virtual reality is pretty cool; we're working on apps for VR."

To Cox, VR is just a more impressive, all-encompassing extension of the kind of experience sharing millions of users already do on Facebook. "You're just sending a photo, you're sending a video, you're sending a piece of text, you're sending an idea, you're sending a thought. [With VR], there's a version of the world where you're sending a fuller, immersive picture of what you're doing..."

Cox cited existing VR demos that put people in the seat of a Blue Angel jet fighter or a yurt in Mongolia as examples of the kind of 360 virtual experiences Facebook usersranging from everyday Joes to celebrities like Beyoncwill eventually be able to share with their friends on the platform. "You immediately understand... the first time you're in it, you realize you're looking at the future."

This "announcement" really isn't a surprise. When Facebook acquired Oculus nearly a year ago, CEO Mark Zuckerberg was effusive aboutpossibilities beyond the headset maker's initial gaming focus. "Imagine enjoying a courtside seat at a game, studying in a classroom with students and teachers all over the world, consulting with a doctor face to face, or going shopping in a virtual store where you can touch and explore the products you're interested in just by putting on goggles in your own home," Zuckerberg said at the time. Oculus' Brendan Iribe toutedthe ability to talk to a friend's virtual avatar "face to face," rather than in a 2D video window on a flat screen.

Executives from Oculus and Facebook have consistently said they expect virtual reality to be the next major computing platformmaybe even the final computing platform. Given that expectation, it would be a bit silly if Facebook wasn't working on some sort of VR extension for its social network. On the contrary, working on the assumption of a VR-dominated future, Facebook seems determined not to lag behind the crowd, as it did with underpowered mobile apps in the early wake of the smartphone revolution.

As for Facebook becoming a mandatory part of the end-user Oculus experience, the folks at Oculus have continually insisted that Facebook has been an extremely hands-off corporate owner. "I guarantee that you won't need to log into your Facebook account every time you wanna use the Oculus Rift," Oculus founder Palmer Luckey told a Reddit AMA shortly after the acquisition.

"The agreement with [Zuckerberg] was 'Use what services you want from Facebook. We're just here to help,'" Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe told Ars last summer. "If you don't want to use any, you don't have to, but there probably are some services that we provide, like payment services and all kinds of things that they have a really good platform for that we don't."

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Facebook in your face: Why social VR apps arent a surprise

Whether youre every other freelance blogger at your local coffee shop (latte in hand) or a small business owner struggling to keep the lights on, its certainly a question worth pondering. The answer to such a question, relayed to us by a faceless sea of gurus, experts and tech start-up superstars is a resounding Of course not, or at the very least, Well, I guess it depends.

Lets cut to the chase. Its hard to deny the notion that our social presence online has truly become an extension of ourselves off.Facebooks new policy allowing for Internet immortality further cements this reality. Our existence offline is becoming less removed from our existence online, meaning that if were making connections and doing business in the real world, the same rules should apply on the web, right?

Not necessarily.

Reality check. The anti-social movement has been brewing for quite some time, both in the face of business and our everyday lives. Take BJ Mendelson (the self proclaimed Mark Twain of Social Media) and his not-so-subtly-titled book titled Social Media is Bullsh*t. Mendelson asserts that social media is a vague cash-grab concept peddled by marketers with questionable credibility. Meanwhile, critics such as Sherry Turkle claim thatsociety at large is growing alone together in the face of the rapidly-changing technology at our fingertips.

Whos to say whether theyre right or wrong? Its certainly plausible that this anti-social movement was born out of cynicism from entrepreneurs who poured their precious time and money into social networking and saw nothing in return. Maybe they just dont get it. However, we should all take a step back and consider the following:

The caveat to the gloom and doom concerning social media, of course, is that not all industries are created equally. Maybe you really do just need to hit up your followers every now and then. Maybe that tweet or blog share really will lead to a sale or meaningful conversation. Theres no harm in making face and shaking hands.

Social media feels good. The shares. The likes. The metrics. Theyre fun, theyre sexy. Why would anyone want to give that up?

Yet ask yourself; what would it really mean for your company if you went ghost on the social channels? Sure, others might think of you as some sort of insane nomad, floating alone in the vast void of online commerce. But what would it really do to your bottom line? What else could you do with all of that time, energy and money?

Nobodys asking you to go it alone; however, maybe its time to rethink exactly what social means for you and your business.

Megan Totka is the Chief Editor for ChamberofCommerce.com.

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Is Social Media a Waste of Time?

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Juggalo has always been a religion
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