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By Adrian St.Onge

‘Go and do other things’: Medicine Hat social worker says social media shutdowns offer an opportunity

Mar 5, 2024 | 5:32 PM

There can be a positive effect when social media platforms malfunction and shut down, a Medicine Hat social worker says.

As many of 500,000 users of Meta’s platforms — Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Instagram — were unable to login for several hours Tuesday morning.

Social worker Trenton Akers said the time away from social media can be beneficial and help people reflect.

“We can all have dopamine and a feel good feeling from social media,” Akers said.

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“But it’s about whether or not we want that feel good feeling in the moment or do we maybe want to take that moment when Facebook goes down and kind of take that opportunity to go and do other things,” he said.

“Take that opportunity to engage with other people or maybe even take that moment to be bored and be mindful.”

Active users were logged out of their accounts, people signing in for the first time today were told their passwords were incorrect and app users received errror messages.

The websites were all back up and running by the early afternoon.

Business experts also told CHAT News this a lesson for owners to diversify their marketing strategies to not be as reliant on social media.

Facebook sees over three billion active users monthly, while WhatsApp and Instagram both see over three billion monthly users.