‘Reunions with lost pets or goods are practically public, and it’s a thrill to watch it happen’

How social media became the world’s best lost and found

Acouple of weeks ago, I lost my wallet. This is not uncommon for me; in high school and university, I’d misplace it pretty much bimonthly. Due to this remarkable and embarrassing frequency, my response over the years has been tried, tested and perfected: First I call my bank, then I spend a few hours the next day in line at or on the phone with Service Ontario, getting my essentials replaced.

But last month, I did things differently. First, I went online.

My life is in no way driven by social media — not least of all because my IRL social tendencies aren’t exactly what you’d call robust — but I recognize and appreciate that many of these networks are profoundly useful in ways often overshadowed by their more obvious or negative functions. Social media is after all a facilitator of connection.

I didn’t end up having my wallet located and returned to me by some benevolent stranger (it was turned in to TTC lost and found, missing all the cash, of course); reaching out to the online masses was my first line of response because it works, because there are a lot of people out there who are, intrinsically, good — even if (or perhaps especially if) you don’t know them.

I’ve seen it happen, and I’m not alone. On Tuesday, actor Tom Hanks posted a photo of a piece of ID belonging to Fordham University student Lauren (last name redacted — er, rather, covered with Hanks’ thumb) on Twitter, with the message: “Lauren! I found your Student ID in the park. If you still need it my office will get to you. Hanx.” The post went viral, and this is exactly how it could always go, albeit on a somewhat smaller scale: Twitter alone — as it is more public than, say, Facebook — is a degrees-of-separation type network that could, if we all actively participate in these mini-quests to pair people with their lost stuff, span the entire globe.

I’m part of a very popular Facebook group in Toronto whose initial purpose was trading stuff for other stuff — it’s a secret group and media attention toward it has been in the past greeted with derision, so let’s just call it Funz Bartering Home — but which has in recent weeks been flooded with posts by members hoping to be reunited with their lost bikes, cats and keys, often with success. I’ve begun to think of the group as less an aspect of my social media and more of an online community centre, with walls that act as bulletin boards or telephone poles, only with much higher engagement and a built-in network of potentially infinite scope.

And there’s still something magical about this connection — about having the ability to help someone out without ever having to interact with them directly. You get an “I was there when” moment — on the Facebook group I reference above, reunions with lots pets or goods are practically public, and it’s an absolute thrill to watch it happen. If social media is the greatest, largest, most ongoing social experiment of our time (and it absolutely is), the fact that so many of us recognize and utilize its capacity for real, immediate positive action demonstrates definitively (or, at least, definitively enough for me) that people are good.

We should be cynical about social media; we should look at Facebook and Twitter and its less successful, late-blooming cousins Ello and Peeple and wonder why, exactly, we need this sort of constant connectivity and unrelenting personal disclosure. But at the same time, we ought to perhaps consider that, at the end of the day, we can use these networks basically however we want. So if you know Lauren, send her a DM; Tom Hanks is expecting a call.