I went to the library yesterday morning to return some books. I went back to the one where I worked for the first time in months. Monday mornings are safe because I know I can avoid seeing the toxic person who somehow still has a leadership position. I was there for more than an hour chatting with people. I stopped for my free Dunkin coffee on the way home. All of this meant that I missed the beginning of the Great Facebook Outage of 2021. I spend way too much time on social media, so I noticed it pretty soon after I arrived home.
So, what did I do when I couldn’t mindlessly scroll through Facebook?
I used Twitter more than I usually do. I don’t know why I’m so bad at Twitter. I should work on that.
I decided to see how easy it is to upload a video to Tik Tok. The result is here – a video of me walking a cheetah. And thus endeth my Tik Tok career.
I had to drive around to people’s houses to write on their walls. It was exhausting.
I read.
I walked the dog.
I laughed at people who cheered Facebook being down like they can’t just choose not to use it.
I laughed at them again when they acted sad it was back because ‘life was good without it” because they can still choose to not use it.
Will the outage change my habits? Maybe. I won’t stop using social media or Facebook, but I might look at Twitter more. I just need to work on my list of who I’m following to make it more pleasant.
The World's Common Tater 
Didn’t even notice it was down….
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I didn’t notice it was down either. But I use Twitter more than FB anyway. My blog posts to both. I find myself catching up on news on Twitter. I scan what’s trending and read headlines.
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I noticed almost immediately because I was trying to find something on Instagram and couldn’t get it to load. Then I went to check “the latest” on FB and had the same problem. So I left both alone, checking every once in a while. Then I saw an article on my NPR news feed. Curious that it happened just when the whistleblower was going before Congress. Hmmm. “Internal error” indeed.
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Once I realized they were down I used Twitter and then opened Facebook back up when people there said it was back.
I watched some of the congressional hearings about Facebook today. They seem determined to do something to fix it
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Flash! I use FB rarely and didn’t know it was down. I don’t care much for the platform anymore, so if it does go away, no bother to me. Something just as intrusive will replace it.
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I’ve also gone through an experience similar to yours, at the beginning of the pandemic, I decided to leave Facebook and Instagram.
It was not easy, as I faced with an open heart the social distance that gives you forms.
Today, after more than 2 years of experience without social media, I have gathered some metrics about my attention that I would like to share.
I did an article on my money online planner blog, titled: My unbelievable results with distance from social media.
I invite you to check it out!
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