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Social media is often criticised for being mind numbing, that is ruining the ability to hold a conversation and that it is killing off the minds of the younger generations.
But it has proven over the last two days that it does have some uses.
Author Laura Lippman started the trend after posting a picture of her face without make up in answer to the harsh comments actress Kim Novak has been getting about her appearance.
Those who followed suit started to add the hashtag #breastcancerwawareness which started a trend throughout both Facebook and Twitter.
Women were nominating each other by tagging their friends in their own selfie posts and some posted a link to the donation page on the Cancer Research UK website, as well as a screenshot of the text donations that they had made.
Although there has been a lot of negativity surrounding these selfies, with many claiming it has almost nothing to do with cancer research, recent comments from the team at Cancer Research UK have proved them otherwise.
The site has seen a large incline of views since yesterday, as well as 800,000 donations, resulting in a total of £1 million donated in 24 hours.
There was also a large incline of people donating to money boxes in Cancer Research UK stores up and down the country.
Carolan Davidge, the director of communications at Cancer Research UK has stated that “The #nomakeupselfie Twitter trend isn’t something Cancer Research UK started but it’s great to see so many people getting involved to help raise awareness of cancer amongst their friends and family.
If people would like to choose to support our work to beat cancer sooner, they can visit cruk.org.”
This is not the first time that those on social media have come together to help a good cause, with events such as Twestival in 2009 raising over $25k to help get clean water to third world countries through festivals organised by different cities on Twitter.
Whether you believe that the selfies are a waste of time or whether you believe that it’s a great way to raise awareness, although it is to raise awareness about such a devastating disease, it is nice to see everybody come together, showing compassion and the ability to work together to strive for a better world.