2751 Moments of Silence
Is it a measure of how far we’ve come that I almost forgot tomorrow’s date? Or, did I just not want to think about it? For the fourth year in a row, on September 11th I will stay off social media - Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, etc. - and observe 2751 Moments of Silence. This re-post from 2008 explains what it means and why I do it. 2751 Moments of Silence Last year, 6 months into my fun, active Twitter life, I decided to honor the memory of 9/11 by not tweeting for the day. While my family and I were extremely fortunate relative to many others (as my sister Suzanne described in her blog post) - I had stopped working in the North Tower June 15, 2001 - the horrible impact it had on our lives, our friends, our homes and our psyches makes it a day of mourning for me anyway. As much as I enjoy Twitter, Facebook, Seesmic and the like, it felt frivolous and disrespectful to me to participate in them that day. A few weeks later I met Jon Swanson , an Indiana-based pastor that I knew only through following and interacting on Twitter. Rather than go into the long discussion of why this meeting represents the best elements of social media, blah blah, blah, I will reprint an email conversation I had with Chris Brogan behind Jon’s back. Me: ”I had coffee with Jon Swanson in NYC this past weekend. What an insightful, warm and caring man. I ultimately sort of found him (and vice versa) through you, so thanks.” Chris Brogan: ”I’m so glad you spent time with Jon Swanson. I think he should be a national resource. : )” Jon and I talked about many things, and I don’t remember his exact words, but Jon told me that he thought my silence on 9/11 had been a good thing to do. His response and support meant a lot to me. In the past few weeks, as the anniversary approached, I knew I would be silent again, but I wanted the act to mean something more than my own grief. How could I honor the loss of 2751 lives in one day of social media silence? Getting out my calculator, I learned the grim statistic that 2751 over 24 hours amounted to just under 2 people per minute. By defining a “moment” as 30 seconds, it would take 22.9 hours to observe a moment of silence for each individual killed that day. The last hour honors those that survived, yet suffered loss or trauma, and are forever haunted by the events of that day. 2751 Moments of Silence. Because social media like Twitter and Facebook have given me the luxury of meeting and befriending so many new, interesting individuals, while giving me a chance to develop personally, creatively and professionally, I want those 2751 individuals to have it for a day. 2751 individuals never had the chance to tweet, post a Facebook status update, record a Seesmic, write their blog or to decide it was all stupid and a complete waste of time. So on September 11th, neither will I. I encourage you to join me. In response to, “What are you doing right now?”, just say, 2751 Moments of Silence.
