Pornhub Had a Huge Spike in Users When Facebook Went Down | 22 Words

This week, the Facebook group of social media platforms experienced unprecedented downtime. As Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook were plunged into the dark territory of error messages and blank screens, people were shocked at how much they really relied on these sites and apps in their day-to-day life.

Many took to the last remaining social media platforms to voice their concerns, plus make some quite hilarious posts about the issue. Some reports even suggest people took to calling the police to report the problems they were having with their apps. It's safe to say the internet went a little bit crazy.

But others had a rather... odd response. While their most-used apps remained unresponsive, they took to a different source of online time wasting - porn. Pornhub reported a massive spike in usage while Facebook and Instagram floundered. And what was even more surprising? The search terms people were using during this trying time.

It's safe to say, we're all social media addicts.

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 The phenomenon of these platforms has effected us all. Scrolling through our apps, commenting, liking and posting has become a huge part of our daily routines.

So much so, that many of us can't imagine life without social media.

It's well known to be highly addictive, and for some it almost feels like our social media accounts are an extension of our very selves. We essentially never log off.

One of the biggest platforms is Facebook.

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 Founded in 2004 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it's one of the biggest companies in the world today. As of 2018, it boasts over 2 billion active users every month.

In 2012, Facebook purchased Instagram for a reported $1 billion.

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 Instagram is a popular app used to share images, and has become one of the most popular destination for online time wasting. It's one of the easiest ways to fall down an internet rabbit hole.

We're all guilty of spending too much time on these apps.

Because they infiltrate almost every aspect of our daily lives, they can start to feel like an inescapable aspect of our routines. Most people spend more time on social media than they'd care to own up to.

But this week, something shocking happened.

Facebook (and the Facebook family of companies) experienced some unprecedented downtime. This meant Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp all crashed, and remained unusable for a surprisingly long time.

Of course, people went bananas.

It seemed as though everyone on the internet simultaneously lost it. Without their usual fix of social media, they were at a loss as to what to do - and wanted their fix ASAP.

Some were angry.

Many thought it was irresponsible and unfair of Facebook to allow all our most relied upon apps to simultaneously crash, leaving users in a communication black hole.

Others had an interesting response.

Police forces from as far afield as Australia and New Zealand reported calls from the public asking for help with their Facebook issues during the downtime. Even the police had to admit there was nothing they could do.

The issue was widespread.

In fact, many took to Twitter to confirm that the issue was happening with accounts around the world. Twitter, as ever, remained a shining beacon of hope during this difficult period.

Many were forced to confront how reliant they are on these apps.

It's easy to pretend you don't care about social media platforms - but when they're taken away, you can really notice an emptiness without them. It's actually a little bit frightening how much the downtime impacted the whole world.

Although the issues now appear to be resolved.

Nonetheless, many are still a little big distraught over their experience of life without Facebook and Instagram. And now news has surfaced about quite an odd phenomenon relating to the downtime.

Without their reliable sources of time wasting, people were at a bit of a loss.

Many couldn't believe how much time they must have been spending on the apps - and how strangely empty they felt without the constant scrolling to occupy their time.

But the internet does have another source of excellent time wasting.

And without their usual fix of Facebook and Instagram to keep them occupied, many users turned to the internet for a different reason.

Because there's a wealth of online content out there on another hugely popular site.

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 Pornhub. The online pornography streaming service was the first port of call for many who were acutely feeling the loss of their usual most-visited websites. And Pornhub was waiting with open... arms.

It seems people were grateful for the service.

As many of the lost and confused Facebook users wandered the internet looking for a place to visit and spend some time, Pornhub provided a welcome port in the storm.

The trend was noticeable.

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 Pornhub shared stats on their site's usage during the Facebook and Instagram downtime - and it was pretty amazing stuff. It seems the site's has almost become a measure of what's going on elsewhere on the internet today.

The downtime lasted for a little over an hour.

During this time, Pornhub reported an immediate traffic surge of 11%. This trend continued, with traffic reaching up to 19% above average during the evening of the same day.

But what was even more surprising?

The change in usual search terms. Because it wasn't just average usage that was effected by the downtime - it was the actual content people were looking for, too.

Some of the highest searched terms were pretty weird.

Pornhub reported a 221 % jump in searches for "Facebook," and an incredible 323% spike in searches for "Instagram." People were so desperate to get their beloved social media platforms back, they actually wanted to watch porn related to them.

Luckily, Pornhub had plenty of options to satisfy their needs.

The site claims it has more than two thousand videos with an Instagram-based "storyline." Well, at least those missing the platform had some good news!

There were some other surprising search trends, too.

One of which was "tentacle porn." The popularity of this (slightly bizarre) term went up by 308% during the Facebook outage - which is absolutely staggering, particularly as it's the second biggest jump after "Instagram."

If you don't know what tentacle porn is, don't look it up.

We promise - you won't be happy with what you find. In this case, ignorance truly is bliss. What is quite interesting is the correlation. Why did the lack of social media make people jump straight to tentacles?

And tentacles weren't the only surprise search term.

Other huge jumps in searches were “wwe" (274%), “game" (236%), “Overwatch" (133%), "Marvel" (129%), "football" (108%), and “Fortnite" (97%). Clearly, something about the lack of social media made people want to watch more game or competition-related pornography. The question is, why?

The trend is very weird.

Clearly, there's something going on that we don't quite understand here. But hey! At least Pornhub was there to help people out in their time of... need?

Whatever the reason for these search terms, one thing is clear.

As a society, we all love to waste a ton of time online. And if one source of time-wasting is taken away, then we're pretty happy to just jump straight to another.

Pornhub shared its stats on Twitter.

It offered the insights as "the moment you were waiting for." While this does sound a little tongue-in-cheek, it's clear that Pornhub usage does reflect certain outside influences. Some even see it as the next big cultural indicator of what's going on online.

Either way, people were grateful.

With some of the biggest online platforms down, it was a huge relief to many that there were at least some valuable places to visit on the internet in the meantime.

Because it's feasible that one day, everything could crash all at once.

And what would happen then? We shudder just thinking about it. With no online destination for time wasting, would people be forced to interact in the real world again?

One thing is clear though.

No matter what happens online, people are still happily dependent on sites like Pornhub in their times of need. Hey - at least it's reliable!