Sociapocalypse - Facebook hadn't loaded.

On Wednesday 28^th of January I logged on to my computer in my office, ready to work, and immediately clicked on the facebook icon saved in my bookmarks bar.

While I waited for the page to load, I opened and logged in to various other accounts I would need for my work day, lazily returning to facebook for my social news of the day. Except, facebook hadn't loaded. I grew impatient and decided to log in on my phone in the meantime.

I discovered very quickly that there would be no facebook access there either. Frustrated by this point, I decided to kill the time while both of my facebook accesses loaded by hopping on instagram. Horrified, I watched the “could not load” wheel pop up again and again, no matter how many times I pulled the cursor down to refresh the page.

#Socialmeltdown2015 had begun.


After a quick search on google I discovered that I was not the only person experiencing this problem, and when I finally accessed my twitter feed I saw the extent of the damage.

A worldwide shutdown of facebook, tinder and instagram – which is owned by facebook – had seen millions of people flutter over to twitter to tweet about their ruffled social media feathers. For over half an hour all three social media sites were completely inaccessible on a global scale, and the hash tags #Socialmeltdown2015, #facebookdown and #sociapocalyopse were at the top of the trending bar.

Doomsday preppers were busy tweeting warnings to the world that the end was nigh, and teenage girls the world over were seriously concerned that their entire workout was now useless because they couldn't post a locker room selfie.

Despite the hype, the event seemed to be over as quickly as it began, with all social media apps returning within 32 minutes of the original blackout. However, the response has prompted some intense discussion amongst academics, politicians, educators, concerned parents and the general public regarding our reliance on social media.

Whilst the meltdown moment inspired comical tweets from sufferers describing their withdrawal-like reactions, there is a real concern that social media addiction is a mental health issue that is permanently and detrimentally affecting our ability to physically interact and maintain a balanced, healthy mental and emotional life.

A study conducted by a group of psychologists at the University of Albany found the social media addiction not only exists, with 10% of the 253 students surveyed showing concerning characteristics of “disordered” social media use, but it can also affect the way your brain responds to other endorphin-inducing activities such as drug and alcohol use.

Julia Hormes, who conducted the study, explains that push notifications activate the reward centre of the brain in much the same way that opiates do.

Not only does social media - and especially the use of push notifications on mobile devices - act as a reward, the unpredictable nature of the reward encourages a rapid habit forming process by encouraging us to check back with the app constantly, a phenomenon known as “variable interval schedule of reinforcement”.

If this wasn't alarming enough, Dr Hormes' study only adds to a growing body of research providing evidence of the addictive potential of social media, including an MRI study which showed brain activity in internet addicts to be almost exactly the same as alcoholics and drug addicts.

No wonder @BradTheLoveFern said “I have cold sweats, I'm angry and crying. I'm like a junkie coming down off drugs #facebookdown”

By Erin Lawson