スクリプトは事前提出されたものですので、ビデオの音声とは異なる場合があります。

The Power of Social Networking Services

Arimoto Atsuko (Fukushima National College of Technology)

Have you ever heard of Twitter or Facebook? Maybe everyone says YES!

In Japan, many people use not only Twitter and Facebook, but also Mixi and Gree. Using social networking services or SNS has made it possible for us to enjoy talking with foreigners without even leaving our homes.

I use Twitter and Facebook, too and talk with my followers in the United States, Canada, Cambodia, Australia and Korea. We talk about our high school life, fashion, music, love life and so on. I made foreign friends because I love Lady Gaga. We wouldn't be able to be friends if we didn't use Twitter. I think SNS really make many things possible.

Thanks to SNS, I was also able to contact my former junior high school English teacher. Her name is Emily. She taught me about her country Australia and the pleasure of debating in English. She gave me confidence to debate in English, so I am very grateful to her. Unfortunately, we separated without saying goodbye because of the Great East Japan Earthquake. After the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, she went back to Australia and I evacuated. I thought I would never see her again because I didn't even know her email address. I felt very sad. But one day, I found her on Twitter by chance. I sent her a tweet: "Emily! This is Atsuko. I found you on Twitter!" Then she tweeted me back: "Oh my God!! Atsuko!! My Student!? I am so happy to hear from you!! I have been wondering where you are. I am OK, but very sad." Since then we have enjoyed exchanging email.

SNS were also a very useful tool to get information after the disasters of March 11. The whole of Japan would have been even more confused without SNS. Many victims used Twitter to access and send information. I received words of encouragement from my followers, like "Are you OK? Where are you now?" from Lucy in America, and "I am worried about you. What can I do to help you?" from Yuki in a different part of Japan. And I was able to express my feelings through Twitter and wrote about conditions in the disaster stricken areas for my followers. In the shelter where I stayed, there was no TV and no newspapers. So I didn't know what was happening at all. I could only get information using Twitter. If I had not used Twitter, I think I would have been very scared. Twitter was what I depended on most for the first few days after the disaster.

After the big earthquake, I wanted to do something for my town and for Japan, which has many problems, but I had no idea what I should or could do. Then, one day, one of my tweets was followed by a Korean girl. I wondered why she had followed me, because it is said that many Koreans dislike Japanese people, and I often hear news of the territorial dispute between our countries. So I asked her, "Do you like Japan?" and she said, "Yes! Of course. I learn Japanese at school. So can you teach me Japanese?" Of course, I was very happy to hear that, and I found that real communication is based on person to person, not country to country.

Twitter knows no territorial borders, so when she said to me "I really want to go to Japan!" I realized that simply using SNS to teach Japanese and Japanese culture could make a good contribution to Japanese recovery.

SNS afford many opportunities to meet people. There are lots of wonderful things about it, but, on the other hand, they can also be dangerous.

SNS have two major weaknesses. First, they can be used as a tool to slander people. For example, one careless remark can hurt another person's feelings. Second, if we use SNS too much, we can become addicted to them.

I realized that spending too much time on SNS was not good for my life. So now I have cut back a lot and only use it for short periods each day. SNS are very useful tools but we should all use them with caution. We might not have a lot of influence like Lady Gaga, but there is always the possibility that one of our tweets could change the world.

In our globalized society of the 21st century, we need to know information about the world around us, and we need to share information about ourselves, too. I really think we owe a lot to the people who invented SNS.