How the internet helped us survive the COVID Lockdowns

COVID changed our lives, but lockdowns changed our world. In the past year, as COVID swept at a vicious pace across the globe and governments enforced lockdowns, more and more people turned to the internet to keep their businesses going, and to hold onto their sanity.

Without the technology that gives us access to the web, the 2020 hard lockdowns would have looked a lot different. The lockdowns have caused havoc in our lives as well as in our economies, but with the web, the damage has been a lot less than it could have been.

While not all businesses can function solely on the web, but for those that did manage to continue to make money, having internet access truly helped them to stay afloat. And when considering the role that the internet played in saving us during what will be remembered as a very difficult period in our lives, it would be wrong to limit the positive role that the internet has played to just what it has done for business. Everyone with access has benefitted in some way over the past year and what’s more is that most of us take it for granted.

To use the words of Technology Review writer Will Douglas Heaven, the internet became our umbilical cord to the outside world.

From ensuring that students could keep up with their studies, to helping companies completely revolutionise the way they did business, to keeping elderly family members in touch with their loved ones, the internet was and continues to be the lifeline that keeps us going.

And a lot of what we got used to during the lockdowns, will likely stay a part of our way of life for years to come.

The Uptick in Web Traffic

In South Africa, as with every country that experienced some form of lockdown, there was almost an immediate increase in web use. The demand for a stable and fast internet connection also shot through the rough.

Instead of the increase in use breaking the web, it actually encouraged infrastructure to be further developed.

Think about how the infrastructure in South Africa has changed over the past year. Prior to lockdown, there was the plan and slow roll out of fibre internet networks but the spark in demand for access only drove those plans forward and this in turn has led to fibre now being quite common in towns and cities across the country.

The increase in web usage was also the catalyst for new web development companies as well as a sharp increase in the popularity of programmes and apps that while already used by some, now became quite commonplace. Think of how you probably had never heard of Zoom before lockdown but perhaps now rely on it for your work from home business meetings.

And it is not just the digital technology that has experienced a lot more attention.

As more and more people stayed at home, attention moved from the mobile device as a means to access the web back to laptops and PCs. The effect of this is that the popularity and use of mobile apps have seen a dramatic drop in the past year.

Social Media Meets Social Distancing

Not being able to be as social as we’d otherwise like to be has been a big blow, especially for those who are more social creatures as well as those who normally live alone.

Prior to the lockdowns, social media platforms like Facebook were already popular for keeping up with friends and family, but when lockdowns arrived, users of social media realised they needed more than such platforms to keep them going.

As such, users turned to the kind of platforms that would allow them to make video calls and have a more face to face kind of connection with friends and family. The result has been that new social media apps like Duo and Houseparty, along with old school apps like Skype, which allowed people to socialise in groups online, becoming more popular.

Newspaper Popularity

In the years leading up to the lockdown, printed newspapers and magazines were experiencing a real decline in readership. Having not adopted a digital presence and with an increase in other, sometimes out there, online news outlets dominating the web, newspapers were no longer the preferred source for news.

But that changed with the lockdowns.

News of the pandemic became amongst the most read features online, and newspapers were quick to fast track their move to the web in order to provide information from what many readers would view as a more trusted news source.

Local newspapers also benefitted from the increase in readership, as news readers followed local stories to see how their town was handling the pandemic.

Video Games Beat Sport

The lockdowns saw what was going to be a brief halt to the sporting world become an extended stop to all of the favourite sporting events. While this was happening, those staying home found that online gaming was a good replacement.

In the months of lockdown, gaming websites saw an increase in sales and in many ways, online gaming provided those playing the games with a wonderful escape from reality. The lockdowns also saw a vast increase in people watching others gaming.

On the website Twitch, thousands if not millions logged into the site to watch their favourite gamers tackling some of their favourite online adventures. This helped many people to feel less lonely during their isolation and in some ways it even encouraged some people to become online gamers themselves.

The internet was built to make life and business easier, and it was instrumental in helping millions of people to survive the COVID lockdowns, both mentally and emotionally as well as financially. And following the lockdowns, the internet is coming out stronger, and more important to society, than it has ever been.

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At Imaginet we provide our clients with reliable internet solutions that will keep them connected to the world. You can contact us today for more information about how we can get you set up.

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