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Fri 18 Dec, 2009 10:01 am
MERRITT ISLAND, Fla. " As Shellie Ross waited in a hospital for word on her son, Bryson, she posted this note to the social networking site Twitter.com: "Please pray like never before, my 2 yr old fell in the pool."
She found out 19 minutes later that Bryson was dead.
Ross' decision to broadcast that message Monday night to more than 5,300 people who follow her posts on Twitter has unleashed torrents of support and derision. Social networking experts and friends said Ross was right to reach out for help, while critics questioned whether her son would be alive if she spent less time online.
"Could this child's death have been averted had the mom not been on Twitter all day?" asked Madison McGraw, a personal security guard and writer who blogs at madisonmcgraw.com. "This woman spent all of her time on Twitter. It was unbelievable," said McGraw, who lives outside of Philadelphia and doesn't know Ross.
Ross, 37, is also a blogger " blog4mom.com " and a prolific poster on Twitter. She has two other sons, ages 18 and 11, and her husband is an Air Force sergeant.
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Apparently (unconfirmed) mom was busy tweeting before, during and after her son was drowning in the home pool.
In Mr B's words: Cell phones are the new cigarettes.
Except you die faster.
@dyslexia,
dyslexia wrote:
Apparently (unconfirmed) mom was busy tweeting before, during and after her son was drowning in the home pool.
If this is confirmed she should be charged with child abuse and possible murder.
@dyslexia,
Bad parenting is bad parenting. If it hadn't been Twitter that occupied her time, it would've been soap operas, or Soduku, or reading a book.
Pools and toddlers are a bad combination, and anyone who doesn't have a fence around their pool is a fool.
Poor kid.
@dyslexia,
Ugh, this is so depressing.
I don't think there's anything inherently bad about her posting about it. If (knock on wood) I (knock on wood) were ever (knock on wood) in a similar (knock on wood) situation, I could imagine that as I paced and fretted in the waiting room, with nothing else to do but wait for news, I might post something here to get good vibes going. And then once I posted, I'd have to update.
But if it was a situation where she was distracted by the computer, wasn't keeping an eye on her two-year-old, and she didn't have a fence around the pool, yeah, that's seriously fucked up.
Oof.
It has been said (and if it hasn't been said I should be said by someone more prolific then I) that technology is the down fall of society.
@Seed,
not if used properly
twitter is the new kind on the block and a lot of folks are going way overboard, basically chronicling their entire day, which generally is pretty dull (i got up, i walked to the bathroom, eating breakfast, in transit, having lunch......blah, blah, blah)
i follow more than i tweet, and my tweets are usually responses
@djjd62,
I agree. with you. But how many times have you seen something not used for it's intended purpose. Technology is a great thing. It is what separates us for everything else. (that and our handy dandy thumbs!)
What happened with this woman is sad, much like you stated. twitter is just the escaped goat. If she had been pre-occupied with Mary Kay, it would have been the same.
Bad parenting is bad parenting, agreed.
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