Across 2020 and 2021, COVID-19 had a significant impact on lives across the world.
Q2 2020 is the first quarter of core data where fieldwork occurred during global lockdowns, and there are a number of ways in which this is visible in the Q2 2020 data. For example, we can see a significant drop in those planning to buy Travel Tickets, which is sustained to date:
However, there are also instances where changes in certain areas have been less noticeable. We can see that the number of people playing games on a games console has remained relatively stable - despite our Coronavirus Multi-Market Study showing that 35% of people were spending more time on video games:
This doesn’t mean that the trends shown in GWI Core or the Coronavirus Multi-Market Study aren’t right. Instead, the methods used to collect GWI Core data mean that short-term spikes in usage and behavior might not always be as visible as you would expect.
Firstly, we often ask respondents about which behaviors they ‘typically’ engage in or what they do on ‘average’. When talking about their typical or average behavior, respondents may have thought about their behavior pre-pandemic - as they do not consider their actions during a pandemic as normal.
Secondly, many questions consider monthly frequency, or ask people ‘ever’ use a particular device. As they’re not doing anything new, those who are spending more time on an activity will continue to be captured as they were before.
This is supported by the findings of the Coronavirus Multi-Market Study, which found that those who claimed their usage of specific media types had increased tended to be pre-existing users. For example, the vast majority (96%) of those who said they were spending more time gaming were already gamers.
Therefore these increases wouldn’t be shown in GWI Core, which asks about monthly usage, as most of those picking up gaming as a more serious hobby during lockdown would’ve already been gaming on at least a monthly basis.