People use social networks to keep contact with their family and friends, businesses use it to promote their products or services, and it has even been used by companies to determine the type of person a potential employee may be. According to Fox News, there is also a feel-good side to networking: finding lost children.
According to NCMEC, social media has helped to resolve and recover 98.5 percent of AMBER alerts since 2005. Of 1,451 AMBER notifications from 2005 to 2009, 1,430 children have been found.
“There is no doubt that social media played a role in that,†Bob Lowery, executive director of the Missing Children’s Division at NCMEC, told FoxNews.com. “Facebook has over a half a billion users. We don’t want to miss out on these opportunities,†he said.
And because of social networking sites like Facebook, NCMEC has the highest found and return rate they have ever seen. The recovery rate of missing children found and returned is 96.5 percent today, compared to 60 percent in the 1980’s.
“We are finding lost kids now faster than we ever have and social media no doubt is helping us communicate with the public. We are able to engage the public with disseminating images of the missing child and that increases the probability that we will find that child,†Lowery said.
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