ブログ - 2020年4月21日

Coronavirus pandemic and online media consumption: settling into the New Normal

This article is part of a series of insights that reveal the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on online consumer behaviour. To be notified when new insights or data become available, please click here.

There was little public reaction as governments across Europe extended the current coronavirus pandemic related lockdown period for at least a few more weeks, demonstrating the collective acceptance of the “new normal” that Europe has got used to. We saw in previous studies that the pandemic wreaked havoc across a number of industries, and benefited others. Now, one month into the lockdown (give or take a few weeks, depending on the country), the novelty of “the new normal” seems to have worn off, and we may be seeing signs of fatigue. These signs are reflected in the most recent levels of activity across some of the categories that grew the most during the month of March 2020. These categories are “General News”, “Instant Messaging”, “Food/Groceries Retail”, and “Entertainment”. (A noticeable slump in “Education” is probably linked to school holidays over the Easter period. It remains to be seen how much enthusiasm students (or more likely their parents) will summon up to re-engage after the Easter break.) Generally, activity has levelled off.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, we illustrate this levelling-off through five charts.