Impact of Covid-19 on swiss internet usage

General

Internet access

The internet has been around since 1989, but widespread use of the internet has only begun in the late 90ies. The swiss government has been tracking the amount of people with internet access in switzerland since 2014 and the number of households with access to the internet has been steadily increasing. COVID-19 did not change that fact overall but especially households in difficult financial situations were hit harder by the pandemic than others.

Type

Region

Size

Financial situation

Result (#/%)

General

Internet usage

COVID-19 did not seem to have a significant impact on the time people spend on the internet. Since a lot of people were at home and couldn't leave the house. One explanation for that could be the desire for change while people were stuck at home.

Frequency

Age

Education

Result (#/%)

  • Gender - Total
  • Men
  • Women
General

Internet activity

The switch from Email & Co. to Video Conferencing and Social media is in full gear. Though COVID-19 has not made as big of an impact on that transition as one would expect. One possible explanation for that, is this stats counts people who participated in an activity and not the amount of time people spent on certain activities

Year

E-Commerce

Online Purchases

While generally more people are warming up to the idea of purchasing goods on the internet, it is still mainly 'younger' people that are active online shoppers. It's also interesting to see that relaxation of covid-19 related regulations during summer 2020, was followed by a decrease of online purchases.

Age

Gender

Result (#/%)

  • In the last 3 months
  • In the last 12 months
  • At least once in life