Virginia Tech

This past week America has experienced the largest shooting massacre in our nation's history. It has brought our nation together as one, like so many of the other national tradegies. The way people are coming together because of Virginia Tech is different than most of the others, people are pouring out their support not through letters of cards, it is happening on the internet, mostly through facebook.com.
I, as many others, was watching one of the primetime news specials that aired the day after the intial shootings happened. As most of the other news programs it gave recaps of what had happened and who was affected. One of the stories was on how people have come together on the interent and how facebook.com was the center of it. One of the news anchors made a comment that "Facebook is becoming the new town square." Students were posting comments and trying to find friends in less than hour after word of what had happened. People were also leaving meaagaes of condolnce and disbelief.
I know that some people are against facebook and what it means to be a part of the college pop culture. I can see where they are coming from, but is becoming the new cell phone, even though it may not be portable, facebook is a new line of communication and it isn't going anwhere. Even the main stream media is getting in on the deal. They are looking for news stories through different threads and the opinions that kids have on them. I know this has happened in Virginia, but I also happen to know that media outlets here in Milwaukee have used Facebook as a way to get people's reactions and to get in contact with specific people to get their comments on a news story.