Position Paper 2

 Covid-19 and Its Effect on International Media Usage

The coronavirus pandemic changed many parts of our daily lives, our media usage included. From spending month in shutdowns with not much else to do but occupy our time with technology, to spending quarantines scrolling through social media, and even education turning remote, media became a necessity in most of our lives. Personally, I remember days during the shutdown where I took advantage of streaming services and laid on the couch, for longer than I would like to admit, watching TV. Additionally, during my 10 day quarantine when I was COVID-19 positive, I spent every hour that I was not sleeping either streaming a show, scrolling through social media, or attending lectures over my computer. At the start of 2020, we could have never imagined just how much our lives and global media usage would come to be impacted over the next year.

One of the biggest issues relating to the increase in media usage because of the coronavirus pandemic is the increase in cybersecurity risks. One big rumor that was going around during the height of the pandemic was that Donald Trump was going to ban TikTok because it gave China the access to our personal information. My dad also complains constantly that China is stealing our information through the apps, but I believe we do not think of it as a huge deal. Cyber security is definitely an issue when media usage is skyrocketing, so it is imperative that we prioritize cybersafe remote technology capabilities as we transition to a media based society. This pandemic has spread internet capabilities into a areas that did not before. People worked to add accessibility to more remote areas to help increase the ability to spread updates about the virus. This is both bad and good. It is good because it is allowing for the ability too have those connections with the outside world. It is detrimental though because it may be an invasion of privacy for some who preferred to live without these capabilities. 4.58 billion people around the world now use the internet. 346 million new users came online from July 2019 to July 2020. The coronavirus is most likely to thank for this.

One of the biggest media changes that came with the coronavirus pandemic is the accessibility to work remotely. Zoom was created in April of 2011, but I bet none of you even knew it existed until last year, I know I did not. Now, I do not think colleges, the workplace, or appointments would be the same without it. With the second half of the 2020 Spring semester being online for almost all colleges, Zoom became a necessity. Even now, a majority of classes still remain virtual, with meeting times on Zoom calls online. If someone is in quarantine, professors offer the option of attending the class on Zoom. Offices have conference calls through Zoom to reduce human interaction. Some health care offices Zoom their patients instead of meeting face to face. For example, therapy sessions here at SAU are held through Zoom. My sister has to Zoom her Doctor to get her prescription refilled instead of going into their office. It has become so popular that Zoom is its own verb now. I have caught myself saying that I will be "zooming" into class or "zooming" into the meeting. It shows just how important something is when a fake verb is made out of it. Zoom is not the only medium being used for remote meetings, things such as Blackboard Collaborate are used in substitution for a classroom.

The Harris Poll is a firm of social scientists, strategists, and storytellers who are experts in research for public release. They are "the fastest, most accurate and actionable sources of social intelligence". They reveal Human Truths in Hard Data using advanced analytics and award-winning journalism. Between late March and early May, the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, the Harris Poll, found that between 46% and 51% of US adults were using social media more since the outbreak began. Imagine just how much those numbers have increased since then. 

Especially when the coronavirus pandemic first began, I found myself checking the case numbers by state as well as worldwide. Turns out, I was not the only one. That does not surprise me. Many people turned to the news, spending more time than they ever had in the past on their mobile devices accessing current events and global news. All over the world, people have flocked to online news sources as a spring of information on the latest COVID-19 updates. When the pandemic first started, there were not that many national cases, but the fear was at an all time high. Now that the cases have skyrocketed, the fear had diminished. Funny how that works. In coherence with that logic, towards the early months of the pandemic, the Apple News app offered a long to COVID-19 stats on the home page as soon as you opened the app. Now, to find that information, you have to go to the last tab, go to a "COVID-19 special coverage" link, and scroll down to find the link to the stats. I believe media is more of a distraction to what is going on in the world more now than it was at the start.

COVID-19 has also driven online sales growth. Non essential in-person business were shut down throughout the pandemic to attempt to reduce the number of cases. This drove the need for online shopping accessibility through the roof. especially for fast-moving consumer goods. These goods include things such as toiletries, beverages, over the counter medicines, cleaning and laundry products, plastic goods, personal care items, and less expensive electronics such as smart phones. This drove up the market of things like Instacart and curbside pickup.

I believe that despite this spike in media consumption, it will decrease severely as the coronavirus pandemic is not as destructive and life goes back to normal. By using social media platforms, people have gotten to express their sadness of the absence of "normal" life. People also have had a lot of time on their hands to scroll through their own memories and reminisce. This leads me to believe that media usage will decrease severely because people will be more interested in spending time face to face, out living life not through a phone screen or computer.