Social media users back to old-school activities during major outage

On Monday, Facebook experienced its worst outage since 2008.

Hyderabad: Instagram and WhatsApp were inaccessible for hours, as were YouTube and Snapchat at various points.

Facebook is synonymous with the internet in India. Over 100 crore people use Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp to communicate with family and friends, share information, thoughts, and ideas, and expand their businesses through advertising and outreach.

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The outage that lasted for about six hours showcased just how dependent the world has become on Facebook and its family of apps. Many couldn’t stop biting their nails in sheer anxiety and restlessness. Yet, some rejoiced about break from platforms by turning to more old-school activities.

“I’m a night owl and I usually scroll through Facebook and Instagram looking at pictures of food, dream vacations, BFF’s pets, and photo-shopped models. However, last night, I was back to old-fashioned book reading which I haven’t done for ages now. It was quite refreshing,” says Bandhu Vishwavaram.

Some took the opportunity to assume that social media platforms are permanently dead. They used email and even mobile messaging apps to communicate with others.

“I knew that the detox from social media was what I needed but couldn’t bring myself to do. I was happy to be forced – with Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram being down,” says Sripriya.

Another social media user, Vinuthna, said: “Almost six-hour outage made me realise how much time I actually devoted to Facebook and Instagram. My only question was what am I supposed to do now? It kind of forced me to relearn how to live my, offline.”

However, those who use the social media giants to run their businesses were out of sorts.

“Facebook and Instagram contribute so much to my success in business. It was frustrating financially,” says Abhishek.

In the meantime, discussions and memes of the outages were trending on Twitter. Some other apps including Telegram and Signal slowly flickered back to life.

“Facebook is down, and the world already seems less toxic,” one person tweeted.

Many realised that spending more time offline can actually be better for mind, body, and soul.

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