Opinion: Remember life before Facebook? Monday's outage gave us a rare glimpse. Did you learn anything?

A man checks his phone in Mexico City on Oct 4, 2021. Facebook and its Instagram and WhatsApp platforms were hit by a massive outage, impacting potentially tens of millions of people as users flocked to other networks to sound off. — AFP

During Facebook's massive outage Monday, I tried reloading the website about 143 times over a six-hour span. I may be exaggerating but this is how it felt. Shame on me.

The global social media goliath has become such a fixture in our lives that when it suffered an outage, it was treated as if we experienced a power outage in our home. You know, absent-mindedly turning on light switches when we enter a dark room. And then we shake our head at our stupidity.