In what is being called the great social media blackout of 2021, for more
than five hours on October 4, the impossible happened: Facebook, Instagram
and WhatsApp all went down.
For so many of us heavily reliant on social media and messaging sites to
entertain ourselves and communicate with friends and family, it was
something close to a nightmare.
Facebook blamed a "faulty configuration change" for the outage which caused
a "cascading effect" bringing platforms to a halt, and while its now fixed,
it was a sharp reminder of how dependent we are on social media. Many of us
rushed to other platforms such as Twitter to get our fix, and even resorted
to (gasp) actually texting or calling our friends.
"Whats really interesting with the outage is the immediate digital detox
that we were all forced to engage with that wasnt voluntary," says Dr
Rachael Kent, lecturer in digital economy and society at Kings College
London and founder of Dr Digital Health.
"Were all now grappling day-to-day with managing our digital nutrition and
our digital habits, trying to have healthier relationships with our tech [so
its] not to be too addictive and compulsive.
"However with the outage we were forced immediately to stop reaching for our
phones, or even if we were reaching for our phone, not getting that dopamine
kick, and that entertainment and sociality from the device that we are so
used to having so readily available at our disposal whenever we want it."
This showed just how addicted many of us are to social media. "It was hugely
challenging and immediately forced us to not only have a digital detox, but
also confront our addictive relationship with not only our phones, but also
the applications themselves," explains Kent.
If youre a habitual user of Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp, you might have
found yourself constantly opening the apps, only to remember they were down.
For Kent, this relationship "really illustrates how much theyd have become
an extension of our physicality, as a mediating tool to enable so much:
community, connection, communication, sociality. The inability to stop
picking it up despite the fact that you know its not working really
illustrates that dependence."
This forced hiatus might have stirred up some negative emotions
particularly for businesses running on these platforms. "On the business
front, theres always going to be a lot of anxiety around not being able to
manage and run your business effectively," Kent explains. "We live in an
always-on, always-available culture that was immediately halted."
She suggests the average user of the apps would have also experienced
"anxiety, but for different reasons the inability to be able to scroll,
doom scroll or habitually scroll, to not be able to access products and
services you might want to buy, as well as not being able to chat with ones
friends."
Kent hopes the outage will cause us to re-evaluate our relationships with
these addictive apps. "I would like to think it forced us to think, what can
I do to entertain myself? How can I communicate with friends and family
without using these platforms? And also forced us to think about non-digital
analogue methods of entertainment, so reading a book, journaling, cooking a
meal, for example," she says.
In an ideal world, the outage will cause us to have a healthier online life,
but "the reality of that?" she asks, "I dont know how long that will last."
RTÉ Lifestyle.
===========================================================
The fb-exchange mailing list
Manage account,
List Page: https://www.freelists.org/list/fb-exchange
Subscribe: mailto:fb-exchange-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=subscribe
Unsubscribe: mailto:fb-exchange-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=unsubscribe
Archive: https://www.freelists.org/archive/fb-exchange
Administrative contact: insight@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
===========================================================
