Television activity increased dramatically when Facebook’s services stopped working a couple of days ago, reports Morgunblaðið.
Last Monday, the social media services owned by Facebook were down due to technical problems. The crash lasted for about six hours, and people were forced to stay away from popular social media sites, such as Instagram, Facebook and Whatsapp.
Over 90% of Icelanders use Facebook, so naturally the failure meant that people had to find other ways to spend their time on Monday night. It appears that instead of being on their phones, Icelanders turned to watch the TV.
According to Icelandic telecommunications company, Síminn, the change was notable. Compared to a regular Monday night, the television services increased by 43%. Last Monday’s television viewing rate is comparable to average Sunday evening, when the nation watches TV the most.
“The view was evenly distributed on these main stations and other material. We mainly found it remarkable how much the viewing increased with this one failure at Facebook, it would no doubt have been even more so if, for example, YouTube had been down for a long time,” says Bryndís Þóra Þórðardóttir, Síminn’s product manager.
Luckily, the social media giant’s services are up and running again, so Icelanders can get back to normal.
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