"I (Don'T) Think I'Ll Be Ok ... ": Understanding Perceived Impacts Of Internet Outage

How do people perceive the impacts on their lives should the Internet go out for an extended period of time? This paper is based on 754 responses to a survey of mostly students at three universities. It was found that perceptions are very divided, both in terms of feelings about whether an Internet outage is likely in the future, and in terms of how serious its effects would be. Two impact factors were identified, Affect and Awareness. In terms of age differences, 18-29-year-old respondents have a significantly higher current usage of social media, and perceive more impacts on Affect and Awareness. Likewise, females use social media more than males, and predict a significantly higher impact on their Affect. This paper is the first to explore perceptions of the impacts of an internet outage; future research plans are described.