In the U.S. about 7 thousand people die each year while waiting for organ transplants. Facebook hopes to reduce that number by creating a special application which allows users to become donors, without leaving the social network, reports The New York Times.
The social network announced the new application for the promotion of blood donation on Tuesday. Facebook plans to ask users for their donor status, along with a personal or biographical information – date of birth or the school number. Donor status will appear in the Health and Wellness category. On entering special application, the user will have access to the official websites with the donor registries.
Facebook hopes that this move will change the attitude toward the organ donation, not only in U.S., but in the UK also (Facebook has about 30 million registered users in this country). In the future this application will be made available in other countries.
The experts appreciated the attempts of Facebook in social engineering. Some of them say that the social network may even be an alternative to the official registry of donors. Publication of the donor status information on the Facebook page will help neutral people to make the right choise, according to the director of liver transplants at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Dr Andrew Cameron. “It will be a great day in the history of transplantation,” – he said. Previous efforts to promote donation failed: this is too personal and painful question, he added.