The coronavirus crisis is causing a disruption in everyone's lives. And also in the activity of companies such as Facebook.
With hundreds of millions of people confined to their homes around the world, social media they have become our window of contact with the world. And this is putting Mark Zuckerberg's platform servers to the limit.
The coronavirus crisis affects Facebook
An unprecedented increase in traffic
Now that we can't connect in person with our loved ones, communicating through mobile is the only way we have to establish social relationships.
This has caused the use of social networks to skyrocket. Facebook, during these days, has registered traffic figures that it had never suffered before. Millions of people with no other way to connect with their loved ones have come to this point.
Let's also keep in mind that WhatsApp and Instagram also belong to Facebook. Therefore, a large part of social relations throughout the world now depend on the same company.
workers from home
The difficulty of Facebook To keep your servers running smoothly don't focus solely on increasing traffic.
And it is that, to ensure their health, the company proposed a few weeks ago that all workers do their work from home. Although IT work is easy to transport to the teleworking, the reality is that the resources are not the same as when a whole team works in an office. Therefore, this situation is turning out to be quite a challenge.
Netflix or YouTube, among the companies with challenges
Obviously, Facebook has not been the only company for which the coronavirus crisis has become quite a challenge. Other technological giants are also experiencing the same. In fact, some streaming applications such as Netflix or YouTube have been forced to reduce the quality of their videos, so that the networks of the different countries do not end up collapsing.
Even the arrival of Disney+ has been slightly affected. In Spain, the videos are not being broadcast with the highest quality either. And in France the launch has been delayed until April 7, at the request of the government of the neighboring country to avoid collapse.
Facebook and other networks, the window to the world
Bearing in mind that we are going to be unable to leave our homes for several weeks, social networks like Facebook and other similar tools have become the only window we have to the outside world.
They are practically the only way to socialize and keep in touch with our loved ones. For this reason, it is not at all strange that its use has skyrocketed these days, in which its social function has become more evident than ever.