When you ask people about their internet habits during a pandemic, you never know what you’ll discover. It might turn out that some employees pulling marathon days online report their mental health has actually improved. You could learn that parents still plan on arranging virtual playdates for their children once the pandemic is over. Or that people are split between seeing their work, social, and home lives return to a pre-pandemic normal and transforming their lives into a new hybrid of in-person and digital experiences.
These were some of the insights Mashable gleaned from a survey designed to understand how people’s lives went digital — from work to school to grocery shopping to exercise classes and entertainment — and how they felt about it. As the anniversary of the coronavirus global pandemic approached, Mashable conducted a nationally representative online survey of 1,276 adults in the U.S. between February 6 and March 1. Respondents answered dozens of questions about their online habits, mental health, and well-being. (For a full discussion of how pandemic internet use might be changing us, read this story.)
Their responses don’t prove a causal connection between internet use and specific outcomes, positive or negative. They do help illustrate potential trends during a year in which the average monthly household data use in 2020 skyrocketed by 40 percent compared to the prior year, reaching nearly half a terabyte, according to OpenVault, a global provider of broadband industry analytics. That’s the daily equivalent of four hours on Zoom or FaceTime, three hours browsing the web, three hours scrolling through Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, three hours gaming, and four hours streaming HD Netflix. OpenVault believes the 2020 surge “forever changed” broadband usage patterns, establishing a new normal.
Image: Mashable
Our respondents were simultaneously grateful for a reliable internet connection and seemingly troubled over how much time they — and their children — spent online during the pandemic.
Two-thirds defined themselves as essential workers and performed their jobs in person all of the time, and roughly the same portion of respondents said internet capability allowed them to stay safe during the pandemic. More than half said in the past year they more frequently streamed video, music, and podcasts for entertainment, participated in group texts or messaging apps, met with loved ones via video, and attended virtual events like religious services, concerts, and plays as well as celebrations like birthdays and weddings. With the exception of attending virtual celebrations and religious services, the majority of respondents said they planned to keep doing these digital activities once the pandemic was over.
Several respondents who answered a set of questions anonymously about their online experiences expressed relief or happiness:
We have been talking in chat groups with my children and my siblings more
I think it has made my relationships with my grandchildren stronger because I am actually seeing and interacting with them every week rather than twice a year.
I love doing zoom conferencing. My book club is over zoom. I am glad I can continue this activity.
Yet the paradox of the internet is how it pushes us toward and pulls us away from both gratifying and unpleasant experiences. It wasn’t too surprising when we found that nearly a third of participants said they didn’t enjoy spending so much time on the internet. Half said they more frequently lost track of the hours they logged online compared to before the pandemic. Only 30 percent felt that virtual gatherings were an adequate substitute for the real thing. Almost two-thirds reported encountering more negativity online. More than 40 percent said they took breaks from social media more often than prior to the pandemic. Sixty percent of parents said they worry about how much time their children spend online.
Survey respondents also expressed disgust or disappointment over rudeness, intolerance, toxicity, misinformation, and in one case, the “very ugly side of humanity.”
In general, between 40 and 50 percent of participants reported feeling more anxious, bored, lonely, depressed, and angry or irritated since the start of the pandemic. Thirty percent of respondents said their mental health had worsened since the pandemic, but that ticked up to 33 percent in the midwest and northeast, both regions that experienced sustained COVID-19 surges as well as weather extremes. In the west and south, by contrast, 24 percent and 28 percent of respondents reported worse mental health, respectively. Despite high infection rates and deaths in certain areas in those regions, those slightly lower rates could be linked to warmer weather, which enables outdoor socializing and activities.
Surprisingly, 32 percent of respondents working 10 or more hours online actually reported experiencing better mental health during the pandemic compared to just 14 percent of all participants. While we don’t know why this group seemed to fare better despite their marathon online work days, it’s possible that these respondents won unexpected gains in their work-life balance, like the end of a tiring commute, increased time with children, and the opportunity to take more rewarding breaks.
People pursuing personal interests online were somewhat more likely to experience lower levels of anxiousness and depressive feelings than those using the internet for work, but both groups appeared to be struggling.
Parents and essential workers also had significantly elevated levels of anger, depressive feelings, loneliness, and boredom compared to all respondents. More than half of parents and essential workers said they felt more depressed, angry, and irritated whereas about 40 percent of all participants said the same. (The contrast becomes starker when comparing essential workers to nonessential workers and parents to non-parents.)
Yet parents and essential workers also reported better mental health by roughly 10 percentage points. More than 40 percent of essential workers and parents said they felt more fulfilled and happier compared to roughly a quarter of all respondents. If that seems counterintuitive or downright shocking given the extreme pressures those groups have faced in the last year, consider they also have consistent human contact and perhaps feel a higher sense of purpose.
“People can absolutely feel more than one emotion, even seemingly contradictory ones, at the same time.”
Dr. Vaile Wright, a psychologist and senior director of health care innovation at the American Psychological Association, discussed Mashable’s survey findings and said that essential workers have also received public support as “heroes” during the pandemic. Such recognition, especially for workers whose jobs are typically under-appreciated, could buoy them in the face of day-to-day challenges. They also enjoy structure and face time with coworkers. For families that have forged stronger bonds in the past year, that togetherness may provide a buffer against the depleting grind of ushering kids through unpredictable days.
On Thursday, the APA released new survey findings from its Stress in America research. For the past year, it has tracked stress in the time of COVID-19. The recent poll of 3,013 adults in the U.S. found that three-quarters of both parents and essential workers said they could’ve used more emotional support than they received. A third of people in both groups said they’d received treatment from a mental health professional.
“People can absolutely feel more than one emotion, even seemingly contradictory ones, at the same time,” Wright wrote in an email. “No feeling is final and if we can approach our emotional state by viewing our emotions as ocean waves that come and go, then we can allow ourselves (even give ourselves permission) to feel multiple different ways at the same time. It’s not either I feel fulfilled or depressed but instead I can feel both fulfilled and depressed.”
The Mashable COVID-19 Anniversary survey was fielded among 1,276 U.S. adults between February 26, 2021 and March 1, 2021. Invitations to the survey were sent to a nationally representative sample of the population (age, gender, region, race/ethnicity) sourced from Alchemer. After data collection, responses were weighted on age to match that of the U.S. Census 2019 American Community Survey. Statistical margins of error do not apply to online-non probability surveys.
Additional reporting by Anna Allsop and Jessica Estremera.