I really don’t want to chime in on the lock down we, at ECU, experienced today because it was blown out of proportion, and by that I don’t mean the way the community handled it but how the students on their social networking sites did, which leads me to my need to address this issue. The lit class I was in was notified at 10:11 am today that we all needed to find a safe place to seek refuge in, and so we all piled into the English department offices. I comfortably found my place on the floor and began reading my German notes and within 15 minutes I heard nearly 15 different horrifying stories of how the man supposedly had an AK-47, that he had a hostage, that there were two gunmen, that someone was trying to break into a building, that a bus was being held up, etc. Actually, the “alleged gunman who was walking casually down the street toting an AK-47” was just a man walking casually down the street, headed towards his class, with an umbrella sticking  out of his backpack. I’ve seen the pictures, the grainy pictures, and yes it does look peculiar and that is certainly enough reason for classes to be put on lock down, but for people to start such potent rumors is disgusting and irresponsible. Social media is such a fascinating thing and has connected the world in such an interesting way. Amazing political movements and beautiful messages have been spread through these sites yet they are also the medium in raising the climate of fear, often for no reason, and I find that disturbing. Before the internet, man relied on letters, newspapers, news programs, and telephone calls to receive and send information, people had to be more thoughtful with their words and often times with these forms there is an editor that can sort the riff-raff from the quality. People who express themselves without assessing what they are saying and purely seeking a reaction are damaging individuals. I can’t even imagine the chaos this country would be in if this had been an issue that transcended beyond a college campus and fallacious updates were being spread like wildfire via Facebook, and text messages.  Think about it. Car accidents, theft, looting, arson, violence, you name it, would skyrocket.