It's weeks like these that I truly believe the validity of the phrase "ignorance is bliss."

On Monday in the Daily Collegian newsroom, it seemed like gospel truth. The 19-inch TV was tuned in to 24-hour news. The collective heart rate of the reporters was through the roof, looking for people to talk to, anyone with an answer. Some of them were looking for specifics: Do you know people at Virginia Tech? Are they OK?

But whether you were writing a news story or not, everyone was searching for an answer to the same question: What the hell just happened?

To be honest, we had no idea. But in all fairness, neither did anyone else. CNN, Fox News, ABC News, the Associated Press, the New York Times -- everyone had different information, different body counts, different details. Every five minutes, there were updates, but the conflicting information just made things even more confusing. The overload of information was just too much to handle. Ignorance would have been a blessing, especially considering the horrific events that took place.

But when the major media outlets couldn't save us, something else did: the Internet.

This was most evident in the late afternoon, when CNN had its screen split into six segments. Three of the segments were filled with "I-Reports" -- essentially, viral videos. CNN was relying on a live YouTube for its news, taking advantage of a new media concept called "crowdsourcing." The network enlightened millions about the shooting, all thanks to amateur reporters. These were everyday people capturing footage and documenting information for the rest of the world. Average college students at Virginia Tech were on the scene before anyone else could be, and suddenly they were anything but average. In doing so, they somehow made the chaos a little saner.

The first video footage CNN showed yesterday was an I-Report. Forty-three years after the Zapruder film of the JFK assassination, our news coverage is almost completely reliant on amateur film.

On this report, we heard the flurry of bullets fired inside Virginia Tech's Norris Hall, one by one. It was terrifying. But suddenly, we had a context to go along with the body count. Ten years ago, confusion would have run rampant. On Monday, the urgency of the situation actually helped us.

Within hours of the reports, groups on facebook.com were popping up everywhere. Every five minutes, there were another thousand people in the biggest memorial group. Without this video, none of this would have been possible. CNN would have had no footage to go along with the news story, and no one would have known what was going on.

You wouldn't expect a social networking site to serve any purpose aside from procrastination, but even the Facebook group helped. Within an afternoon, people were finding out if their best friend from high school was OK, getting updates on the gunman, finding out how this all could have happened. We learned how it was possible that a person who shot two people in a dormitory could make it from one end of campus to the other without getting caught.

Was it disturbing? Yes. With every detail, the situation grew tougher to stomach.

But with every detail, some more light was shed on the situation. Soon, the bloggers, the I-reporters and the Facebookers knew more about the situation than the news media. In some cases, these rogue reporters supplied inaccurate information. But the combined efforts of professional news media and the bloggers provided a balance that the whole country needed. Instead of going into hysteria, we were comforted knowing the killer was dead and if that best friend from high school was OK.

In the aftermath of the day's events, we're still using the Internet for information. Benefit groups and concerts are starting up, and they're using Facebook to spread the news. People are changing their profile pictures to VT logos. Yesterday was an unofficial Maroon and Orange day worldwide -- the Facebook group was started by someone in Greece -- and there is now a push from a Penn State Facebook group called "Maroon and Orange for the Blue and White weekend."

The 32 people are gone, but thanks in part to the Internet, they're far from forgotten. And while this widespread Internet word-of-mouth carries this tragedy home, the news outlets are revealing important details of the day's events.

Monday would have been much easier if we were completely ignorant. All we'd have had to worry about was a Nor'easter that never came. But once the news of the tragedy broke, information was essential.

Ignorance was no longer an option. And thanks to the new media, what once was shrouded in darkness now is clear as day.

We are informed, we are saved, and with the unity of millions of Facebookers, we are all Virginia Tech.