Students at Kingston University said they struggled when social media apps Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook crashed last week.
On Monday 4 October Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook were down, with Instagram crashing again on Friday.
Students said the inability to communicate with loved ones was the most challenging part. This was especially the case for international students who were not able to contact family members.
“It was really stressful because my family are in another country and I mostly use WhatsApp to talk with them,” said journalist student Caterina Magnoni.
“It was awful,” said Fatima Zekri a forensic science student, “I couldn’t communicate with people”.
According to the Office for National Statistics, 26 per cent of students reported feeling lonely often or always. So, for students keeping that connection with their family is important.
“The feeling of being alone gets to a lot of people,” said business psychology student Amirah Tahir.
The three biggest networks in the world crashed for six hours due to some “network issues” according to Mike Schroepfer, the chief technology officer of Facebook.
On Friday when it crashed again, Instagram tweeted saying: “We know some of you may be having some issues using Instagram right now. We’re so sorry and are working as quickly as possible to fix.”
It is not the first time this has happened. On 14 April 2019, the same incident occurred where the world was left without social media.
