Sources of information about the COVID-19 / coronavirus pandemic 2020
Effect of coronavirus on global internet usage
All over the world, coronavirus has forced millions of people to stay at home. They are self-isolating to save themselves and their social environment from a further spread of the pandemic. Businesses and markets are closed, and people have more time to spend online. This might be one of the reasons why global internet traffic increased by 20 percent in April 2020 as compared to January and February of that year. Different industries experienced an increase in online traffic during this period: Supermarkets and retail tech for instance, were greatly in-demand among the online consumers.
Coronavirus and fake news
The internet is overflowing with news about coronavirus. People claim more information about the pandemic that has brought their lives to a standstill and they are certainly getting it via all kinds of media. But how much of the news is deemed reliable?
As of May 2020, respondents around the world are worried that a lot of fake news about COVID-19 is being spread. Some are finding it difficult to get reliable information about this topic, and almost half of respondents in the U.S. (aged 18 and older) which are democrats or republicans, encountered made-up news about this pandemic.