How Has COVID-19 Changed the World We See? Impact on Working, Movie Watching, Shopping Etc.

Stuck at our respective homes throughout the worldwide coronavirus pandemic and the lockdowns announced in its aftermath, we have resorted to spending more of our time online. Indeed, with movie theaters opening to lukewarm responses and restaurants witnessing jittery diners trickling in, the COVID-19 crisis has truly changed the world as we used to know it.

However, an analysis conducted by the New York Times on general internet usage from data collected by Apptopia and SimilarWeb, two prominent data providers online, has a stark revelation. The analysis says that our online behaviors changed immensely, perhaps even drastically, as the virus continued to spread while pushing us further to our devices for play, work, shopping as well as socialization. To understand how COVID-19 has changed the world in-depth, keep reading.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on individual lives

In 2019, many of us would have understandably scoffed at the idea of a good part of the oncoming year ushering sky-high unemployment levels, affected businesses, the postponement or cancellation of sporting events including the Tokyo Olympics, along with billions of infections and mortalities. And yet, here we are, doing our best to wrap our minds around the ravages unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping the world over.

Since almost all public gatherings stand more or less either restricted or canceled, people have begun seeking their doses of entertainment from online streaming platforms such as YouTube and Netflix. Likewise, they also seek to connect and socialize with each other via social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Tumblr, among others.

In the last few years, however, users of most online platforms had been increasingly migrating to their smart devices, for education, entertainment, and shopping purposes, among various others. This diverted the attention of several industry niches towards the untapped possibilities of Internet-enabled and portable smart devices. Now, since we are compelled to spend all of our days at home, our smartphones, laptops and personal computers are our safe enough only portals to the outside world. Even then, most of us prefer to relax in front of a laptop, computer, or Smart TV screens as opposed to squinting hard at tiny phone screens.

Netflix, Facebook, as well as YouTube, have collectively witnessed their user base shoot through the roof, as indicated by data from Apptopia and SimilarWeb. Both Apptopia and SimilarWeb derive their traffic numbers through multiple independent sources for creating data conclusions and insights that can be verified and compared all across the internet.

Keeping up, online

With rising prominence attributed to social distancing, we are left with seeking newer ways to connect and socialize, mostly via video calls and video chats. While conventional social media platforms have been growing unrestrained, apparently, we desire to do more than just interact via texts or messaging — it is our primal instinct to see each other face-to-face. This has provided a huge boost to platforms and apps that pre-COVID, otherwise used to linger on relative obscurities, such as Google’s video chatting services, more popularly known as Duo, and Google Meet. Likewise, there’s also Houseparty, which enables groups of people to connect via a single video chat so that they can interact and play online games together.

Our collective interest has also spiked in our immediate surroundings. Especially how it is adapting and responding to the threat forged by the virus along with remedial quarantine measures. This has spurred a renewed intrigue in ‘Nextdoor’, the social media platform dedicated to connecting local neighborhood communities.

Transformation of online learning and education induced by COVID-19

All of a sudden, we have become overly dependent on services that enable us to learn and work from the comforts of our home. With millions of people forced to stay at home as a preventive measure against the coronavirus, Zoom/Google Meet video calls have become a communication mainstay for companies, universities, schools, families alike. Currently, Zoom’s app for cloud meetings is the most used free app in the United States for iPhones, as per Sensor Tower, a research firm that deals with the mobile app market.

Zoom’s stock market shares have nearly doubled ever since this year’s beginning, even when the stock market as a whole saw an overall decline.

The issue with online video platforms, especially Zoom:

Zoom, despite its astronomical popularity, has been groping to address a multitude of data security and privacy concerns, a reactive method that arises by complaints from certain sections of its consumers, privacy enthusiasts, as well as children’s groups. Zoom’s surge in online traffic during the COVID-19 pandemic made similar videoconferencing apps envious of its success. Currently, Zoom is under the scanner of New York’s attorney general, Letitia James’ office, for its data privacy and security practices.

Since these allegations first came up, Zoom was sent several inquiry letters by concerned users asking what, if at all, any new security changes had been incorporated for handling burgeoning network traffic and hacker detection.

While many users regard Zoom as “a valuable and an essential platform for communications,” it raised similar questions about several other video conferencing platforms as well. Furthermore, Zoom has been noted to have been slow for addressing security issues like system vulnerabilities that possibly allow nefarious third parties to, among other issues, gain sinister access to users’ webcams.

However, now Zoom and similar platforms have reportedly adjusted their bugs to provide a safer video calling experience.

How Online Streaming Platforms are subverting conventional movie-watching options

The rise of OTT platforms has significantly disrupted the entertainment sector, particularly the film industry. From the viewers’ perspective, movie-watching has become accessible, convenient, as well as affordable across an expansive audience demographic. Anybody with an internet connection and a mobile device can enjoy a movie from any location in the world.

Meeting friends physically is restricted while work is limited to PCs and laptops at home. Furthermore, shopping translates to switching from one app to the next that offers home delivery services. Similarly, entertainment during COVID-19 implies binge-watching movies and TV shows at home!

If nothing else, statistics from Indian OTT‘s subscribers indicate how entertainment during corona is largely regulated by OTT platforms. Every Indian subscriber’s average time spent has risen from nearly 20–50 minutes to a minimum of one hour during the 6 months of 2020. With more than 40 OTT platforms, Indian consumers can watch their preferable TV shows or movies on their devices with a stable internet connection.

Online shopping during COVID-19

Needless to say, just like everything else, shopping has transferred online as well. As it becomes clearer just how contagious the coronavirus is, certain shoppers have raised concerns about handling their online orders. Many experts claimed that the virus can survive on surfaces for 3 hours to nearly 3 days, as per the material. (However, conclusive findings are tough to report as research is still underway. Hence, numbers may vary)

With that being said, it is highly unlikely that the COVID-19 pandemic can survive on delivered items from their packaging to their delivery time (especially when the entire supply chain has been slowed down too). Besides, shipping conditions make COVID-19 tough to survive, so your chances of contracting the virus due to packaging are almost nil.

As per the CDC, there is a low risk of infection from products or packaging shipped over weeks or days at suitable temperatures. This CDC statement talks about packages in shipment for a few days that did not come into contact with sources of post-packaging contamination.

Likewise, the World Health Organization addressed the same concern, saying that receiving packages from COVID-19 locations is safe. Their website states that the chances of an infected COVID patient contaminating commercial supplies are low. Furthermore, just like the CDC, the WHO affirms that the likelihood of contracting coronavirus from a package moved, traveled, as well as exposed to different temperatures and conditions is negligible.

COVID-19’s impact on e-commerce

For several businesses, a dramatic upsurge in digital technology usage has been a primary consequence of the COVID-19 crisis. This has helped reduce face-to-face interactions for safeguarding employee as well as customer well-being.

Such digital technologies incorporate consumer-fronted applications like business-to-business e-commerce platforms, food, and grocery delivery services, and applications like video conferencing; that have penetrated the business, consumer, and non-profit sectors. Online searches for terminologies like “contactless” spiked 7 times higher between November 2019 and late April 2020. Meanwhile, stocks of major tech giants aligned with the interests of new-found customer safety and health concerns.

This hurried adoption of specific digital technologies raises questions about the recent digital transformation surge as compared to the pre-COVID-19 pandemic.

While discussing the COVID-19 pandemic with many senior executives of top-performing businesses, a recurring pattern has been how severely and swiftly it has affected businesses as a whole, compelling them to respond and adapt with unprecedented vigor and speed. The proverb “slow and steady” has lost its significance, as the global pandemic shifts e-commerce dynamics around the world. Contrast this with the prior digital transformation age that included more time and opportunities for scalable experimentation as well as meticulously planned pilot projects.

The current wave of digital transformation somewhat resembles how medical professionals respond to severe medical emergencies — requiring dramatic and rapid interventions for stabilizing the patient’s well-being while mitigating the urgent severity of their condition. The intervention’s not necessarily appropriate for the patient’s long-term health but still needed to give them a fighting chance for long-term remedies. These medical relief dosages are akin to the hurried steps businesses are taking today to keep their respective boats (or maybe even ships) afloat.

Conclusion

The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly rattled a great many of us. However, it can also be perceived as an event of great transition where we share global solidarity where new and emerging systems replace the old and obsolete ones.

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