Panic over Instagram outage portends future problems

The first thing I do in the morning, admittingly, is check my phone. Swiping through content is an easy way to start my day, and can fill me in on the latest updates and news before I have even brushed my teeth.

The news earlier this month that Instagram went down was a shock to the system for Western millennials and generation Z. Our lifeline and way of interacting with the wider world was temporarily gone, and caused huge panic.

Services experienced interruption around 11 am Eastern Time in the day, and countries such as the United States, Japan, Australia and Mexico were all affected. It is estimated that Instagram has one billion users in total.

By 1 pm the servers were mostly restored, but the fact that this is such big news says something about our reliance on technology. It is not just online communication which is affected either.

Everything from regular payments in supermarkets, to e-commerce and transport were completely nullified, making the outage a huge impact to national infrastructure. It may just be an app, but it is closer to compare the incident to an electricity power cut or water drought for a country.

The impact for such events is likely to get more severe, as more and more of our devices connect to the internet.

The revolution known as the Internet of Things, or IoT, means in principal that cities can hold qualities of “smart cities”, by linking everyday devices to the internet. This works essentially as a system of machines or objects which connect to one another and communicate.

The machine to machine data generated has a wide range of uses, but can mean that cars, fridges and even devices attached to animals can upload data via the internet, and communicate with you more efficiently too via handheld devices.

The potential dangers however, are all too real.

Hackers now can bring down phones and apps such as Instagram, however imagine a future where a hacker will be able to hack cars on the motorway, or traffic lights.

The ensuing havoc would be immense. Everything from smart homes to hospitals would be in danger, and would make server failures such as Instagram the other week look trivial in comparison.

In our futuristic modern day culture, nothing is safe if connected to the internet. You might as well turn off the oxygen.

Are these fears of over reliance on technology warranted?

Most definitely. Does it mean that we should stop advancing or let our caution impede innovation?

You only have to look at recent history for the answer. Danger is almost always outweighed by life utility – just look at how many people are killed by automobiles, unfortunately (and reliably), every year.

Yet this is not a usual concern which puts people off driving. Cars are just too useful. And so is the internet.

Proper infrastructure fail safes are also the responsibility of authorities.

David Durant, a business analyst in the United Kingdom Government Digital Service, said, “Even if there is a ‘mass hack’ of such platforms people will very quickly return to using them in the same way they returned to airplane or subway travel following terrorist attacks.”

The seduction of better services will always be greater than our fear of risks or failure. This is the mindset which propels ambition and innovation in the first place.

Incidents and breaches of trust will be inevitable, however the overall trend will no doubt be forecasted for high growth.

Our panic and apprehension about our reliance on the internet is justified, but the wheels of progress will always turn.

Caution, and proper fail-safes and back-ups, will be necessary to ensure we are not blindly leaping into the future. The more prepared we are for the inevitable, the more prosperous and smooth it will be.