The Coronavirus pandemic has changed the world in an immeasurable number of ways. It’s almost a full year since the first National Lockdown here in England, and it’s fair to say that we’ve seen a huge shift in people’s habits, opinions, and ultimately their lifestyles too. One thing that has also seen a great change, is the way that we use (and rely on) technology…
How COVID Has Changed The Way We Use Technology
– Increase in Internet Use
With people being unable to leave their homes for weeks at a time, it’s unsurprising that we’ve all upped our internet usage. According to OpenVault, for the first quarter of 2020, average broadband consumption in the UK increased 47%. Forbes also reported that COVID-19 has increased internet usage by 70%.
– Reliance on Communication Tools
Video calling has been around since the 70s, and since then has been utilised both personally and professionally. With entire workforces moving to remote working and people unable to see friends or family, it’s unsurprising that Zoom said daily users spiked to 200 million in March 2020, up from 10 million in December 2019. It’s not only Zoom that has seen an increase in use, both Microsoft Teams and Slack have seen surges too.
– Dependence on Food Delivery & Online Shopping
With concerns about safety and social distancing, many people who hadn’t considered online shopping previously decided to make the switch. Online supermarket Ocado reported a tenfold increase in April in demand, and web traffic up to 100 times higher than pre-pandemic levels.
– Expansion of Online Education
According to UNESCO, more than 1.2 billion children in 186 countries have been affected by school closures due to the pandemic. Many nations have taken their schooling online, opting for video calls and online platforms to run lessons. Now that the infrastructure has been set up, it’ll be interesting to see how many schools continue to use these digital systems.
– Sped Up Digitisation of Processes
Research by Twilio has shown that COVID-19 accelerated companies’ digital communications strategy by an average of 6 years. They also found that 97% of enterprise decision-makers believe the pandemic sped up their company’s digital transformation. Things that were once pipeline ideas have been put in place ahead of time.
If you’re looking to take advantage of digitisation and take your business’ systems online, we can help you with that. Here at Yo Technology, we can integrate all of your systems with the cloud, giving you more flexibility and options for collaboration.
About Yo Technology: We’re a team of hard-working IT professionals based out of an office near St Mary’s Football Stadium in Southampton. Interested in getting IT Support for your business? Get in touch!
