{"id":11734,"date":"2019-03-29T16:29:36","date_gmt":"2019-03-29T16:29:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocialelement.agency\/us\/?p=11734"},"modified":"2019-03-29T16:31:30","modified_gmt":"2019-03-29T16:31:30","slug":"when-facebook-went-down-how-did-consumers-behave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocialelement.agency\/us\/when-facebook-went-down-how-did-consumers-behave","title":{"rendered":"When Facebook went down, how did consumers behave?"},"content":{"rendered":"
What do people do when Facebook goes down? <\/b><\/p>\n
Can we cope without Facebook? When the network went dark on 13th March (and Instagram and WhatsApp also suffered from service outages) we looked at how people behaved. <\/span><\/p>\n First, let\u2019s look at how we use the main networks. When <\/span>Manifest<\/span><\/a> researched social media habits in 2018, it found that 72% of respondents used social media multiple times a day. Eighty-two per cent used Facebook, 75% used YouTube, and 53% used Instagram at least once per week. More than 35% of respondents used Snapchat, Pinterest and Twitter at least once a week as well.<\/span><\/p>\n So while Facebook is still the most important network for many of us, we have other options, even during a blackout: <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Moving to other social networks<\/b><\/p>\n We use different networks for different things. Twitter is great for sharing news and getting involved in conversations with strangers (hello #FacebookDown). Snapchat and TikTok can fulfil our need to share micro-videos and images with friends. <\/span><\/p>\n The biggest winner was probably encrypted messaging app, <\/span>Telegram<\/span><\/a>, which reported three million new accounts created in the 24 hours that Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp were offline, or had problems.<\/span><\/p>\n Finding other sites<\/b><\/p>\n Some people found another site to fill the void: PornHub. When Facebook traffic went down, Pornhub traffic went up (a <\/span>reported <\/span><\/a>11%). Slightly strangely, some people used Pornhub as a search engine to look for their social media sites, searching<\/span> for \u2018Instagram\u2019 (searches up 323%) and \u2018Facebook\u2019 (searches up 221%). Analytics site, Chartbeat reported a 3 to 5% increase in traffic to news sites.<\/span><\/p>\n There might be a darker reason for this than meets the eye. Searches for social networks on Pornhub can turn up some interesting profiles of people soliciting webcam sex, using (often innocuous-looking, at least at first glance) social profiles as a lure. Perhaps this switch to Pornhub highlights the reality that there\u2019s a subset of social media use that\u2019s a lot less innocent than it seems. <\/span><\/p>\n Spending more time offline (but being less informed about news)<\/b><\/p>\n