Social media are often associated with some of our country's social ills, such as a haven for sexual predators and bullies and a place where young people just waste too much time. But here is some good news.

A study by faculty members and students in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at North Carolina A&T State University revealed the crucial role that Facebook and Twitter played in providing a means for students to keep in contact with family members and friends caught up in Superstorm Sandy.

Sandy started out as a tropical wave off the west coast of Africa on October 11, 2012. Eighteen days later, it made its way from the Bahamas, turned north along the east coast of the United States and made landfall October 29 near Brigantine, N.J., resulting in at least 174 deaths and $50 billion in damage mostly in New York and New Jersey. Sandy was the second costliest hurricane to hit the United States since 1900.

Students in the journalism department recruited 142 friends and family members during the 2013 spring semester to take an online survey to learn how respondents used social media during the storm. They saturated their social media sites with a link to a university-approved survey. The survey revealed that 34% of students used mobile phones with web-based functions to talk directly with family members and friends. When battery power on either end apparently ran low; 27% switched to exchanging text messages. Twenty-four percent connected with family members and friends using Facebook and 10% used Twitter. At 2%, email was the least used form of social media, an apparent indication of how important it was to be able to exchange information as quickly as possible.

Nearly half of the respondents spent up to three hours and 13% up to six hours per day using traditional and social media to keep up with the storm and how friends and family members were coping with it. Nine out of 10 respondents said keeping in contact with family members and friends via social media was important because it helped ease anxiety, as they were able to communicate--to some degree--with family members and friends. Seventy-one percent said they had become extremely dependent, dependent or somewhat dependent upon social media during the storm.

The study showed that students used their mobile phones and their social media sites to provide emotional and informational support, a supporting online community and a gateway for limited direct aid to family members and friends in harm’s way.

"By doing so, students provided some degree of emotional support for family members and friends in the storm, thereby offering comfort to their family members and friends while easing their own anxiety," said lead researcher Dr. Kim Smith, an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication. "Hearing the voice of a loved one on the other end of the phone followed by a text message when the batteries started running low were the next best thing to being there."

At 140 million, the United States leads the world in Twitter users. Facebook reported one billion active users as of October 2012. Prior studies have shown that people develop a strong dependency upon media especially during a crisis, as they seek credible information, messages of reassurance and calm from anchors, reporters, weather forecasters, other public figures and public officials. As more people turn to mobile phones and social media in a crisis, "Local, state, regional and federal disaster preparedness officials need to take social media more seriously in their disaster planning, an effort that has been to date mostly experimental," said Smith.

"How students at A&T used social media during Superstorm Sandy is one more example of how social media can serve as a positive force in society especially during an emergency," he added.

Smith received help in conducting this study from journalism faculty members Dr. Vanessa Cunningham-Engram, professor Bonnie Newman Davis and journalism student Adrian Gray. A paper written about this study has been submitted for presentation at a major national journalism and mass communication scholars conference in August. The researchers plan to gather additional data in the near future to learn more about the role of social media during Superstorm Sandy.