When Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp Were Down Together

This morning, my emails were flooded with people expressing their gratitude towards their email subscribers since it's the most reliable way to reach your audience when social media leaves your side.

Yesterday, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram were all down together for several hours.

I got to know it when my sister came to ask me if WhatsApp and Instagram were down since they weren't working. "I don't know, my data for today is already exhausted," I said. I had actually used 90% of my data and when IG and WhatsApp didn't load, I thought the data was over.

She left the room and then I thought that I had not received the data exhaustion message and those were the only apps I had checked. I kept the book I was reading aside and checked if Twitter was working. Twitter is where I always confirm if other apps are down.

I went to her and told her that the apps were actually down and that I still had some data left. It was peaceful. I mean social media is hectic, even if we spend time doing nothing just scrolling through the reels is tiring at times.

Coming back to the morning mails. It's true that social media is not reliable and we should all have an email list to contact our loyal readers or followers.

And I am not saying this just because all three major platforms were down yesterday, I had said the same thing when TikTok got banned in India and a lot of creators' saw their efforts going down the drain before rebuilding their following on Instagram.

Besides those flood of emails, there was a post by my friend Bhavani on Facebook saying, "I wish Instagram crashes often." She, too, is an Instapoet and not that she hates Instagram but I was so so glad to see that someone thought like I did.

A few hours without social media and constant chaos was so peaceful. I spent all my time reading a book that soothes my soul.

I wonder how our life revolves around Instagram these days and it's not really our fault as well. Instagram's algorithm is designed in a way that requires you to stay in front of your screen all the damn time.

You would say, "why don't you schedule your posts?"

Well, because scheduled posts have a reach worse than those made in real-time through the app itself.

Constant engagement cannot be done via some third-party apps or bots, you just need to sit with your phone in your hands, tiring your eyes and yourself.

It feels more like a slow poison for both our mental and physical health. I talked more about it here.

So yes, I agree with her and wish that social media should crash often so that people can look around and be at peace.

I love blogging more than I love posting on Instagram now. The writing has always meant to be fun and peaceful for me, but Instagram's algorithm made me feel like we are all a slave to it, trying to please some numbers and data so that we can prove ourselves and our worth.

I know so many amazing artists that remain undiscovered due to Instagram's algorithm.

_______________________

Click here to subscribe to my newsletter.

Buy The Book of Infinite Writing Prompts.