WhatsApp went down, maybe God got some attention

By Andrew Coakley

I wanted to start this post and say that God needed some attention so he shut down Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, but I would not be that facetious.

When Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram went out for five hours (longer for some people) on Monday, the world got to see just how much technology has taken over our lives. The disruption of these Apps literally affected the entire world. No one could send or receive WhatsApp, Instagram or Facebook messages or texts. and for many people, it was a nightmare.

Millions of people have become so dependent on these Apps and the role they play in their daily lives that business for many came to a halt. Life, as many people know it, came to a standstill. Around the world, some people could not transact business, place and fulfill orders, give directives, make plans, organize events, make appointments, respond to emergencies or even receive medical and emotional care.

For many people, their world stopped for five hours on Monday.

It seemed odd that even with a cellphone at our disposal, many of us were still cut off from communication with other people right within our communities or with others from different parts of the world. Because it cost nothing to send a WhatsApp message, the platform has become a way of life for millions of people who may not have data on their cellphones, but who have access to an internet connection.

Consider for a moment, that worldwide 2.76 billion people on average used at least one Facebook product each day and WhatsApp is used to send more than 100 billion messages a day and has been downloaded nearly six billion times since Facebook bought it in 2014.

For us to deny the critical place in our lives this technology has burrowed into our lives, would be foolish. Even those of us who may shun the thought of having to use these Apps, who may refuse to upgrade our much needed platforms or who may have vowed to never "go all out" in upgrading our cellphones, smart watches or television sets, cannot get away from having to use one or more of those programs as long as we're living in this Age.

How much we allow them to control our lives is another story.

In my book "Noise" I spoke deeply about how many Christians have allowed the "noise" of modern technology to interfere with their spiritual lives. Yes, even Believers have become slaves to technology that is seemingly taking over our world. There are Christians whose first action upon waking from sleep is to grab their cellphones and check for new messages. Even before getting out of bed. Their first action is not to pray or get into the word of God, but to get into cyberspace and try to figure out what they may have missed while they were asleep.

Many Christians spend more time on the internet, social media or binge watching television than they do spending time with their Heavenly Father. For so many Believers, time with God has taken a back seat to their technological activity. People can binge watch Netflix for six, seven, eight hours or more without any reservations about it. But they find it difficult, if not impossible to read their Bible for half an hour or spend time in prayer for ten minutes. Yet, they claim to be "Children of God".

The "noise" of the world has so polluted and infiltrated the lives of Believers around the world that it has left many spiritually hallow inside. While many people who rely heavily on these social media apps to work, teach, transact business or even counsel others were disturbed, disappointed and even angry that something caused their favorite site to go down, there were some who found that they actually got some other work done because of the downed platforms.

For those people, the distraction of a constant "beep" no longer kept them from actually doing their jobs.

I wonder what people did during those five hours on Monday when Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram were down. For five hours, those who were hooked on these platforms for years, suddenly felt uncomfortable with the quiet that unintentionally invaded their space. They didn't know what to do with the silence of their phones not beeping, reminding them that a message was coming through. They found themselves with five hours of not having to constantly have their heads bowed to a small screen commanding every minute of their attention.

I wonder how many Christians used that five hour break from these Apps to look Heavenward, realized that the sky was bluer than the last time they could remember, they suddenly could hear that birds singing or chirping was still a thing, gave God thanks that they were still in the land of the living, whispered a prayer and for a moment thanked God for the silence that became the absence of technology - if only for a short period of time.