#facebookdown: Time to panic or detox? Understanding users’ reactions to social media outage

Non-use, particularly involuntary non-use, is an under-researched topic in HCI research, even though it has become quite common nowadays due to frequent digital outages. How do users react to social media outage? Do they become anxious? Or, do they enjoy these brief episodes of social media detox? To answer these questions, we conducted a topic modeling analysis of 223,815 tweets that used the hashtag #facebookdown during the major Facebook outage on 10/4/2021. We uncovered 10 major themes of users’ reactions towards social media outage. Results showed that most users complained, mocked and showed desperation about the outage situation, and during the outage period, increased their quest for other social-media alternatives. Also, surprisingly, many users celebrated the detox from Facebook rather than wishing it to come back as soon as possible. Results offer design implications for practitioners who would like to better respond to future outages.

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