How 2020 has changed the way we use technology

When the first coronavirus lockdowns were imposed outside of China, billions of people around the world were forced to search online for communication, collaboration, entertainment and livelihood.

But the story of the role of technology in the pandemic did not end there.

Early lockdown hits such as Houseparty quickly lost momentum, while some of the year’s biggest breakouts, such as the game Among us, did not appear until later in the year.

Around the world and in many categories, a unifying theme was that the major sites and services benefited the most – the big ones kept getting bigger. The exception is Zoom, the outsider video application that has become a verb; even Microsoft, whose Teams app crushed smaller rivals, couldn’t slow Zoom down.

The following charts are primarily based on results from SimilarWeb, which tracks web browsing data from samples of millions of people, and Apptopia and App Annie, which do the same for mobile apps. . We have chosen to represent either website visits or mobile app usage data, depending on the category, based on what we believe is the most reliable indicator of how the world has used the internet in 2020.

The Internet

The surge in broadband traffic in March and April was so extreme that some video services, such as YouTube, were forced to downgrade streaming resolution to preserve bandwidth – an unprecedented move.

Even after lockdowns began to ease in some parts of the world, online activity – where internet access was available – remained high, and the second increase in November was almost as large as that of the spring.

However, not everyone was able to connect online when the lockdowns reduced their activities in the real world. Even in some of the biggest internet markets, like India and China, there are still hundreds of millions of people without regular connectivity. Internet penetration in Africa is still far behind the rest of the world.

Social media and dating apps

Although there were few opportunities for socializing and dating in the real world, the pandemic has only accelerated the growth of major social and communication applications. Facebook’s biggest competition is itself, with use of its Instagram image-sharing platform closing in on its stable partner WhatsApp, according to Apptopia, which tracks mobile user behavior.

Twitter annual review of its users’ posts reflected the people who dominated the political and cultural conversation of 2020. Outgoing US President Donald Trump and his successor Joe Biden topped the rankings – alongside the wave of anti-racism protests around the world that followed the police murder of George Floyd – and, of course, K-pop group BTS. The most used emoji on Twitter was “laugh-cry” for the third year in a row.

Streaming entertainment

Netflix’s outsized performance also proves the value of being the default choice in any given internet category. Disney Plus saw a particularly strong end to the year as families gathered for Thanksgiving, Christmas and other holidays. Popular hits such as King tiger and The Mandalorian, and perhaps the need for a shared distraction from the horrors of daily news, has pushed more people around the world to the same shows.

The virtual office

Back in the “office”, remote working tools and video calling were essential. (This graph only shows data from the web, so it excludes activity in apps on desktops or mobile devices.) The internet’s ability to focus attention has once again set in, with Zoom benefiting disproportionately, even though Microsoft Teams and Google Meet were available for free in many organizations. Controversies earlier this year over Zoom’s security and privacy controls seemed to have been overshadowed by convenience.

E-commerce

Amazon’s dominance of online retailing and Prime shipping benefits made it the go-to option when Main Street was forced to close. But it was the Amazon-invented shopping festival Prime Day in October that saw the biggest peak of the year so far, with Black Friday seeing further acceleration. Overall, analyst group eMarketer estimated that U.S. e-commerce grew 32% in 2020, reaching 14% of total retail sales.

Food delivery

Food delivery apps were among the hottest tech companies of the year. This was evidenced by DoorDash’s successful IPO, which jumped over 80% on the first day of trading, briefly valuing the company at $ 60 billion and raising expectations for Deliveroo’s early debut in 2021. (The group selected in this graph is just a sample of the market, which shows significant regional variation in branding and app availability; UberEats, one of the larger ones, was excluded because ordering from food has been merged into Uber’s main app, making a Comparison difficult.)

Fitness and wellness apps

Mental health has increased the agenda for business and politics in 2020, as the hidden costs of weeks and months of lockdown have taken their toll. This has prompted more smartphone users to trade Doomscrolling Twitter for mindfulness and meditation apps like Calm, which raised new funds for a valuation of $ 2 billion in December. But as gyms were forced to close, an even more stark change in mobile habits was seen among workout apps like Strava and Nike Run Club. Although usage declined slightly from summer peaks in Europe and North America, these exercise tracking apps have managed to retain many of their new users throughout the year. This indicates a more lasting change than the usual New Year’s boost.