The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we use the internet

Since the pandemic of COVID-19 forced people all over the world to stay locked in their homes, Internet has been the “lifeline” for many people for several different reasons, whether it’s looking for news about the pandemic, keeping their jobs or looking for entertainment to try to forget about everything that is happening in the world.

And, as was to be expected, this obligation to stay indoors ended up changing the internet usage habits of many people. Therefore, the newspaper New York Times analyzed the usage reports published by the SimilarWeb and Apptopia (two companies that work with analysis of browsing habits of users of Internet in the United States) to understand how the new coronavirus has changed access patterns for Americans.

The analysis considers data collected between January 15th (when there were still no confirmed cases of the disease in the country) and March 24th (when all major urban centers were already in quarantine for a few weeks), and makes it clear how the threat of the virus has altered what people look for in Internet.

Internet meetings

The requirement of social distancing rules made it impossible for people to continue organizing parties or meeting for drinks in the city's bars, but even with the quarantine they have been finding creative ways to maintain these habits of meeting through the Internet.

Since the pandemic began, there has been an increase in the use of not just messaging apps, but apps that allow people to videoconference with multiple people at the same time, such as Google Duo and House party.

This is an indication that, even in isolation, people continue to seek human contact in their relationships, and in this age of social distancing and videoconferencing meetings, being able to hear the voice and see the faces of their friends and family is the closest feeling to sharing a bar table.

Work and distance learning

The quarantine has also forced people to find ways to continue to do their jobs or finish their studies without leaving home, and with that they suddenly saw applications that allow this type of activity to stop being a curiosity and become part of their lives. daily routines.

The need to hold meetings with all participants in different places has greatly increased the use of apps such as Zoom e Microsoft TeamsAnd Google Classroom it has been the easiest way for many schools to ensure that all their students receive the lessons they need to complete.

Of course, none of these will be an effective substitute for face-to-face meetings and classes, but this period of quarantine can change some customs when everything returns to normal because everyone is already more used to participating in this type of activity even from a distance.

Entertainment beyond mobile

With the impossibility of going out to visit restaurants, cinemas, malls or any other public place where there is a large concentration of people, there was obviously a greater demand for online entertainment options, which made services such as YouTube, Netflix and Facebook had a nice increase in hits, as people are looking for different ways to have fun without leaving home.

But a very interesting fact from this period was not expected by any of these companies: the decrease in access to these services through mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets.

The data shows that while these online entertainment services have seen a huge increase in demand since mid-January, this increase is mostly concentrated in access to websites of these services, and not in the use of the apps of the same – which in some cases even dropped, contradicting the growth trend of recent years.

This means that not only are people accessing more Netflix and YouTube, but they're doing it from their computers and laptops, not their cell phones. It's still too early to make any projections that this shift will have lasting effects or slow the tech market's shift to an application-focused environment, but most likely people will find (and rightly so) much more comfortable watching a movie on their laptops than on their smartphones when they're sitting on the couch at home.

The time and turn of traditional media

While the pandemic COVID-19 has been a problem for many businesses across the United States, the search for the latest information about the virus has increased the demand for more traditional press vehicles across the country.

Since the virus officially arrived in the United States, there has been a huge increase in hits from local newspapers (such as San Francisco Chronicle, from the city of San Francisco, the Boston Globe, from Boston, and the Seattle Times, from Seattle) as people are increasingly concerned about how the virus is affecting their local communities.

At the same time, there has also been a huge increase in the search for vehicles that bring a more traditional type of journalism, such as CNBC and New York Times, who saw their daily hits soar thanks to reports and updates regarding the new coronavirus.

At the same time, this spike in hits is not reflected on sites that are more focused on opinion pieces and that are openly partisan, such as Breitbart (linked to the US right-wing parties) and the truthdig (linked to left-wing parties), which saw their accesses stagnate – and, in some cases, even fall – indicating that in this period people have been looking more for factual information than for political opinions.

Video games are the new sport

With all the major sports leagues cancelled, sports consumption boils down to the occasional Belarusian championship match or marble competitions, and logically this has caused a loss of interest in sports websites – and that can be clearly seen in the figures from the ESPN, which lost around 40% of its daily visitors between January and March.

At the same time, interest in video game content has never been greater, and more and more people are looking for game streaming on sites like Twitch, which has seen its traffic increase by almost 20% in the last three months. This change of interest made possible the emergence of things that until recently were unthinkable, such as an official championship of NBA 2K20 sponsored by the NBA itself, played by basketball stars and broadcast live on ESPN around the world.

Source: The New York Times