Joy Adalia
What??? Facebook is down? Is it the end of the world???
For close to an hour on Tuesday, netizens were outraged to find Facebook, Instagram, and some Facebook-related sites down. For many people whose lives are closely linked to their social media accounts, it was short of an apocalypse – though the sites were back after about an hour of outage.
Judging from the outraged reactions by netizens (which they posted on Twitter and other social media sites not affected by the Facebook downtime), a lot of people are relying on Facebook for work and fun. In short, a lot of us could live without Facebook! Now, why am I not surprised?
…and before you think I am just mocking the people who felt a huge part of them was lost when Facebook was out, I want to set the record straight: I was also affected by the Facebook outage! It is not about the social aspect of Facebook but the communication part wherein I rely on Facebook groups and chats for work.
Anyway, back to the original topic, what can you do when Facebook is down?
Go to Twitter!
Not all people who use social media sites are on both Twitter and Facebook. For example, though I have a Twitter account, I only use it on very few occasions. Meanwhile, I rely heavily on Facebook for my jobs.
Now, if you are not sure if Facebook is down because you can’t post a status or view your page, you can head to Twitter to check. Chances are high that people will be ranting about the outage within seconds, so you will be sure there is an outage affecting the entire site – not just your Facebook account.
Twitter is a fun place, too (or so Twitter users say – I can’t vouch for that because I don’t use Twitter). You can surely find interesting things to do on the site while waiting for Facebook’s technical team to bring the site back.
Every time Facebook goes down, Twitter comes alive with millions of tweets per second about the unfortunate event. Crazy!
Have a Break
Were you deeply affected by the Facebook outage? Then, perhaps it is time to take stock of things and determine whether you are addicted to Facebook or not. If you felt like it the outage spelled the end of the world for you, then perhaps you might be addicted to this social media! Uh oh. Maybe it is time you take a break for a while and do things that do not involve the internet for a while.
Yep, Facebook will be back shortly [the outage was just for an hour] and you will be able to get back to poring over your friends’ timelines, updating your status, or checking out new stuff on your timeline. But as long as Facebook is down, you can’t do that.
So, have a break. Go to sleep, read a book, chat with friends [without using Facebook, of course], remove weeds from the garden, bake a cake, go jogging, etc. It does not matter what you do or interest to pursue. It probably is high time you stay away from your gadgets and have fun with non-tech stuff.
Aside from doing fun things, it might be time for you to focus on work for those precious minutes that Facebook is down. Clean your desk, clean your computer, brainstorm ideas with your officemates, get all your backlog work finished, and try doing something productive with your time.
How Netizens Reacted
The top trending hashtag on Twitter right now is #facebookdown – something that is not surprising, of course. So, how did netizens react to the crazy hour when Facebook was down? Here are some examples:
