To think Facebook 'marking yourself safe' option is overused?

[iismum]

Sure, it's fantastic if, for example, you were at the Ariane Grande concert or it you spend a lot of time in the vicinity of London Bridge and there was a real chance you might have got caught up in the terror attacks and people would genuinely worry. But I feel like people obsessively marking themselves safe just because they live within 20 miles of the event when there was practically no chance they were involved just feeds the general hysteria and makes people feel that no one is safe.

To be honest, I was not beside myself worrying if my friend in leafy south-west London who probably crosses London Bridge twice a year was safe. What happened is horrendous, but 6 people died. Practically everyone in London is safe. I feel like people's need to mark themselves safe is increasing the impact of these attacks when we should be trying to do the opposite.

You're more likely to die crossing the street in London than a terrorist attack and yet i somehow don't feel the need to inform the whole of my FB acquaintance I'm safe every time I've reached the other side of a road. I have family and friends all over the world who haven't panic called me probably because they know the chance of me dying in a terrorist attack is infinitesimally small

I work in the area where the attacks took place last night. I wait on London Bridge for my bus home every day. I regularly have lunch at Borough Market and the Southwark Tavern is my local after-work pub. I watched the events unfold last night with horror.

I have not marked myself as safe on FB. Those family and friends who know me well will know that although I work in the area, I am not likely to be out in that area on a Saturday night. If it had been a weekday night then that would have been different. Friends who don't know me well have no idea which part of London I work in.

I have received some messages this morning and have responded to them all individually which took seconds. I have had a few friends mark themselves as safe on FB, many of them transit in and out of London Bridge daily and one was out on the lash last night and I had seen from earlier FB photos that he was near the Shard.

I don't see the harm in it, it's not hurting anyone is it to let friends now that someone is safe? It might be mildly irritating for those who like to roll their eyes at such behaviour but meh, I can live with that. Am sure the families of those who lost their lives last night and in other attacks would have given anything to see their loved ones marking themselves as safe.

MrsDV, you were the one who said it, that you would care very much if your loved one were injured.

What was the point of that, exactly? Would I have thought for a minute that you wouldn't care? No, of course not, hence my post just to make that clear.

I get exasperated with the jumping to statements that I've implied something I haven't. I'm a straightforward poster and I say what I mean. I have no time for 'passive aggressive' whatever bollocks that is.

The point is @NavyandWhite that this is a useful function FB offer for people who live, work or may be in an area where an incident like last night's happens. It allows them to let their loved ones know that something terrible hasn't befallen them in a quick and easy manner.

What is the point of people with no connection to the area marking themselves safe? A future trip to London as you suggest hardly seems to matter!

Yeah yeah Lying.
Whatever you say.

I do roll my eyes at family members and friends who I know won't have been anywhere near but having been stuck in central London on 7/7 and not being able to contact anyone because the phone lines were down. (My parents knew I was safe i called them before we even knew what it was)

I think my family and friends would have appreciated it that day

YANBU

There are people who will add to the scaremongering by doing this.

A few of dd friends though have used this both in Manchester and London as they were in the vicinity of both attacks. She had about 6 of her friends in London last night near tower bridge, due to return to school today.

My dd used it twice as should have been sleeping metres from the Arena and also close to the arrests in GM.
Each time though it was in response to fb messages asking if she was ok. Obviously friends and family knew she would be near both.

I agree. It's useful for people that live close by and could very possibly be there. It helps calm down all the thousands of texts and calls from worried friends and relatives.

Today I noticed a FB friend had checked herself in as 'doesn't apply to me'. Yeah, we know, because you live in Asia, have done for years and you post three times a day about what you're doing in said continent. Think we'd know if you'd been here...

I wasn't going to, but because I live in London and work in London Bridge, I got FB notifications that several friends had used the feature to specifically ask if I was OK

It says in my status that I marked myself as safe because someone else asked me, not because I felt the need to chip in.

It so happens that the spot where one of the terrorists lay shot on the ground outside the Wheatsheaf pub is the exact spot I was having a quick after work drink with colleagues on Thu. My non London friends don't know either this, or that I actually live a couple of miles north. They just asked me to check in to confirm I was OK.

Fwiw Facebook just prompted me to mark myself safe from the London attack, I'm in Manchester.

I find it useful and reassuring to be able to check friends and acquaintancesi living in london marked themselves safe or just posted that they're fine.

So glad I found this post. I live in London but miles away from London Bridge. I find this fab feature over the top, self obsessed and self indulgent. It's me, me, me. If it was say a repeat of 7/7 attacks with multiple attacks all across London or a bombing that could affects hundreds if not thousands then fine. However, this was still a very isolated incident, in a small area concerning 100 people or less. We'd soon find out if any of my friends were caught up. These feature is useless- as out of my 450 friends, maybe 50 have marked them self as safe. Does this mean I should assume the other 400 are not? Nope. So is utterly pointless to me, other than marking those individuals as self obsessed and OTT. First thoughts should be with those who were caught up in the attack, not assuming all of FB can rest easy knowing you weren't.

#FB feature NOT fab feature!

I thought of this thread today when someone I know marked themselves safe from the tower block fire today. Someone who lives nowhere bloody near Grenfell Tower and who has been posting several times throughout the day with stuff like what they had for lunch has decided to mark themselves safe a couple of hours ago .

Geillis me too.
I hold my hands up. Despite getting pretty cross on this thread about some of the attitudes towards the feature I felt like lobbing my lap top when someone I know who has never left this borough used it.

She was 'safe' from a terrible fire that happened on the other side of the city in a place she would be too scared to visit.
Fucking fool.

Oh I had someone in Chiswick mark themselves safe yesterday. It's a bit ridiculous.

That said, I'd checked into the Barrowboy and Banker pub on London Bridge at about 7 on the night of the attack. By the time of the attack I was in Farringdon, having moved on for dinner - but none of my parents/aunties/friends who I wasn't with knew that. I called my mum as soon as I heard but the feature was really useful for me in that scenario to save needless phone calls. My mother in law was particularly pleased I'd marked as safe as despite prompting, DH forgot to text her to say he was fine...

I have a friend who marked themselves safe. They live no where near any of the terrible events over the past few weeks, yet has marked themselves safe on all these occasions.
FB prompted me to mark myself safe re the fire. I didn't even click on the doesn't apply to me option. It's not my tragedy to try and use to get a bit of sympathy from my FB friends. Let's save that sympathy for the poor souls who actually need it.

Nice, OP. I know someone living in "leafy SW London" who was stabbed at London Bridge.

I have family overseas who would know that, as a Manchester resident with a young daughter it would be more than possible that I would have been at the concert.
Perfectly reasonable to tell them via Facebook that I am safe.
I have a cousin in London. I have no idea of the details of her social life. I was pleased to see she was safe.
Many of the victims of the attack in London were from overseas. Naturally anyone with a loved one in London who is based overseas would be keen to know they were all right.

I think the "mark safe" feature is generally very useful. I live within walking distance of London Bridge and I have a lot of friends and coworkers who live, work and socialise in the area, Borough Market especially. So on the night of the London Bridge attack, the mark safe feature was a HUGE help. I was very worried about a lot of people (just as people were worried about me, especially friends and family outside London/overseas) and it helped to put minds at rest. Same for the Paris Baticlan attacks. I was there at the time and had family and friends who live and socialise in that area. I was so worried and the "mark safe" feature was a real blessing that night.

However, it did seem OTT yesterday when a few people were marking themselves safe during the Grenfell Tower fire. None of these were people who live or work in West London even and the chances of them being in a Latimer Road tower block are pretty non-existent. It never even crossed my mind to think if they were safe. It did seem like an element of bandwagon jumping. Similar to a schoolfriend who marked herself as safe THREE DAYS after the London Bridge attack. She was at home as usual 250 miles away when the attack happened and only arrived in London (for a brief shopping trip) 3 days later. No idea why she thought she should then make herself safe. It made me wonder if she felt left out!

I don't see the harm in allowing people who might be worried about you to know that you're ok.

YANBU - I've removed people from my friends list for this drama queen, attention seeking behaviour. Yes if you're there. Get over yourself if you were nowhere near.