Organ donor registrations in the United States jumped 21-fold in a single day after Facebook introduced a feature that let users display their organ donor status on their timeline and linked them to official registration pages. The case is cited as evidence that campaigns led by private companies can be more effective than government-run programs at encouraging organ donation.
A total of 13,054 people registered as prospective organ donors on May 1, 2012, the day Facebook rolled out the feature, according to a paper by Johns Hopkins University researchers who analyzed online data from 44 U.S. states, released on the 4th. That was 21.1 times the daily average of 616 new registrations before the launch. In Georgia, sign-ups surged as much as 109-fold, and 57,451 users disclosed their intent to donate to their Facebook friends. The researchers attributed the success to a design that allowed users who saw their acquaintances' decisions to accept organ donation as normal behavior and then move immediately to the sign-up process. Linking the sequence of exposure to information, confirmation that acquaintances had taken part, and official registration on a single screen reduced drop-off at each step, they said.
Kim Dong-yeop, standing director of the Korea Organ Donation Association, said registered prospective donors show higher rates of family consent at the actual donation stage than those who have not registered. "If people can share donation information and the fact that they have registered as prospective donors on platforms they use in daily life, it can lower the barrier to registration while also encouraging conversations within families," Kim said.
