The power of social media

Posted on August 26, 2014 by 40 Mile Commentator

Recently the ice bucket challenge has erupted into a huge craze with friends, family, colleagues and the alike all donating their time and effort into a good cause. It all goes to raise money for the research of ALS which is also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Once you get challenged on social media by a friend (Facebook is a popular one), you have 24 hours to either donate to the ALS foundation or post a video of yourself getting an ice cold bucket of water dumped on your head. You then have to challenge three of your friends to do the same. This is how the awareness gets spread across social media. One person to the other and soon it evolves into this huge event and can raise a ton of money for a good cause.

Even celebrities and those around the world are participating in this ice bucket challenge, but why all the negativity from some?  One of the reasons is because people don’t understand the concept of the campaign. Why dump this cold bucket on someone’s head? What’s the point? The point is that the water being dumped on an individual’s head acts as punishment for not donating, but the fact is that it still spreads awareness which is just as good as a donation. The whole point is to still donate money to this good cause. However the fact that so many are taking part in the ‘punishment’ part of this, still raises awareness and gets the cause out so that people know of this and will then possibly decide to donate money.

Other critics are also blasting this idea of the challenge because they believe its wasting good water, but many are pointing this out because of the drought problem that is currently happening in California.

Another note of negativity is from people who think that this is just a way for people to get out of donating money by resorting to a video of dumping water on a person’s head.

All of these are valid points from those not wanting to participate, but the fact of the matter is that the ALS challenge is helping and is making a difference.

A man by the name of Anthony Carbajal who is 26-years-old was diagnosed with ALS this past January and has also been making waves on social media. He too posted a video, but it was more emotional than the normal ice bucket challenge. It shows him accepting the challenge with lots of emotion as ALS runs in his family and he tells his viewers about this devastating disease. He believes that this has been a great help in spreading the word on ALS.

With more people challenging others on social media, it makes a large difference in the long run for ALS research.