Yesterday, one of the most powerful social media entities went down. The lesson learned was more social than technological.
At around 3pm Eastern Time, 2pm Central, noon Pacific Facebook went down for users all across the country, even becoming inaccessible for many people. All that would come up is an error message. It didn’t take long for disgruntle Facebook users to take to twitter and trend about this annoyance. One lady joked that she had to resort to talking to her family again. Another person tweeted they can finally go eat lunch instead of starving themselves looking at Facebook. Facebook went back up around 5pm Eastern Time. This was the third time Facebook went down in as many weeks. A Facebook spokesperson told tech news site Mashable the shutdown cause was due to a configuration issue. Facebook’s platform status said they were experiencing a major power outage. And that’s not all. Rumors were posted claiming Facebook was now charging $5.99 a month and greater just for people to keep their account. I saw at least five people post this on my page. This rumor is false. Facebook is as free as it ever was.
But there are lessons learned here. First off, we can’t believe everything we read on Facebook. So many people were freaking out that they may have to pay for something that’s been free for years. That’s just not the case. Think of all the celebrity death hoaxes people put on Facebook over the years. People freaked out when Facebook shut down altogether. This shows you how dependent we are on social media. I see it all around me. From coffee shops to bars to diners, ?I’ve seen incidents where people don’t even look up at each other; just down on their smartphones. Between you and me, I’m thankful there weren’t riots and violence. I fear a day like that coming; I hope I’m wrong. I saw a poll in which 83% of Americans say they can live for a day without today’s technology. Why are we lying to ourselves?