Digital steps during the corona pandemic

News
 | 16 December 2020
The Swedish Internet Foundation's annual survey The Swedes and the Internet, shows that the corona pandemic has affected our Internet habits – particularly more and more pensioners have started using the Internet during the pandemic. Most new Internet users are 76 years old or older.

Below we point out some results about media use on traditional and digital platforms as well as some results about the ones that are most used to get information about the coronavirus.

Traditional media vs digital media

Since 2019, the TV channels' various play services (for example SVT Play and TV4 Play) has passed traditional TV in terms of listeners among Internet users aged 16+ years. Among pensioners, the proportion who have ever looked at play services has increased by 11 percentage points, from 79 per cent to 82 per cent.

The habit of consuming newspapers on paper has decreased by a total of 5 percentage points from 2019 to 2020, when 72 per cent read a print newspaper. Digital daily newspapers are at the same level in 2020 as in 2019 and remain at 80 per cent. Among pensioners, the proportion who have ever read a print daily newspaper has decreased from 91 per cent to 85 per cent, while the proportion who have read a digital daily newspaper is at the same level, 78 per cent (the share was 79% in 2019).

Traditional radio has decreased by 7 percentage points from 2019 to 74 per cent in 2020. Listening to digital radio has not moved that much – the proportion who have ever listened is 64 per cent in 2020, which is 2 percentage points more than in 2019. Thus, there are still more people listening to traditional radio than digital. Among pensioners, the proportion who listened to traditional radio decreased from 93 per cent to 89 per cent, while the proportion who listened to digital radio increased by 5 percentage points to 54 per cent.

Most used coronavirus news sources

Among pensioners, 90 per cent state that television is the main source of news about the coronavirus. In second place are the radio (26%) and the newspaper (25%).

In the working population, television and digital newspapers end up in tied in first place with 56 per cent, followed by government websites (27%) and radio (15%). Only 6 per cent state that the print newspaper is a major source of news about the coronavirus.

Students state digital newspapers or news sites as the main source for information (55%), followed by television (46%) and government websites (21%).

Read the report (in Swedish): The Swedes and the Internet 2020. (The link goes to The Swedish Internet Foundation)
Read the English summary: The Swedes and the Internet 2020. (The link goes to The Swedish Internet Foundation)

 

About the survey: The Swedes and the Internet is an annual individual survey on Internet use, and was first conducted in 2000. The principal for the study is the Swedish Internet Foundation, an independent non-profit organisation that works for the positive development of the Internet. This year's survey is based on two measurements: one in quarter 1 (i.e., from January to the end of March) and one in quarter 3 (more precisely from mid-August to the end of September). This is the first time that The Swedes and the Internet is based on two measurements in one year. A total of 5,514 people responded to the survey.

 

Karin Hellingwerf

Topic :
Media use
Sweden
ICT / Social media