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The virus and the way we internet
With nearly all public gatherings called off, Americans are seeking out entertainment on streaming services like Netflix and YouTube, and looking to connect with one another on social media outlets like Facebook. In the past few years, users of these services were increasingly moving to their smartphones, creating an industrywide focus on mobile. Now that we are spending our days at home, with computers close at hand, Americans appear to be remembering how unpleasant it can be to squint at those little phone screens. Facebook, Netflix and YouTube have all seen user numbers on their phone apps stagnate or fall off as their websites have grown, the data from SimilarWeb and Apptopia indicates.
While traditional social media sites have been growing, it seems that we want to do more than just connect through messaging and text — we want to see one another. This has given a big boost to apps that used to linger in relative obscurity, like Google’s video chatting application, Duo, and Houseparty, which allows groups of friends to join a single video chat and play games together. We have also grown much more interested in our immediate environment, and how it is changing and responding to the virus and the quarantine measures. Amid the uncertainty about how bad the outbreak could get, Americans appear to want few things more than the latest news on the coronavirus. Among the biggest beneficiaries are local news sites, as people try to learn how the pandemic is affecting their hometowns.
Americans have also been seeking out more established media brands. CNBC, the business news site, has seen readership skyrocket. The websites for The New York Times and The Washington Post have both grown traffic more than 50 percent over the last month. The desire for the latest facts on the virus appears to be curbing interest in the more opinionated takes from partisan sites, which have defined the media landscape in recent years. Publications like The Daily Caller, on the right, and Truthdig, on the left, have recorded stagnant or falling numbers. Beating all of the news sites, in terms of increased popularity, is the home page for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has been attracting millions of readers after previously having almost none.
(Available: https://www.nytimes.com. By Ella Koeze and Nathaniel Popper. April 7, 2020. Adapted.)
Allows, highlighted in the text’s second paragraph, means:
