May 18, 2020

Ofcom has published its latest research on how people are receiving and acting on news and information during the current coronavirus pandemic. The two reports summarise the findings from week five and week six of the lockdown, including how people’s experiences and behaviour has changed since the previous weeks.

The research from week five, which also includes early findings on how the pandemic is impacting our online behaviour, shows that:

• adult internet users in the UK spent 17 minutes longer online on average each day in March compared to January;
• eight times as many online adults in the UK used video conferencing service Zoom in March than in February, while 35 times as many used group video chatting service Houseparty; and
• online adults visited the BBC’s news website or app an additional 19 times on average in March compared to previous months, and spent an extra 24 minutes viewing the content.

In week five of lockdown:

• the frequency with which people accessed news and information about Covid-19 continued to fall; just one in ten people now accesses news about the virus at least 20 times a day, compared with a quarter (24%) in week one;
• the proportion of people who are actively seeking to avoid news about the pandemic continued to increase (34%), up from 22% in week one;
• use of social media as a source of information about the pandemic decreased from 49% in week one to 34% in week five;
• half of people (50%) came across false or misleading information about Covid-19. False claims linking 5G to the outbreak remain most common, but these are being seen less frequently (by 51% of people in week four, compared to 47% in week five); and
• virtually all respondents continue to say they are closely following the official advice about practising social distancing (97%), only going outside for essential things (96%) and washing hands regularly (91%).

Ofcom also published a report examining consumption of news and information about Covid-19 by ethnicity, covering weeks one to four of the lockdown. It finds, among other things, that social media is a more popular source for accessing news and information about Covid-19 among minority ethnic groups (54%) than adults from a white ethnic group (40%). A higher proportion of adults from a minority ethnic background (47%) also say they are finding it hard to know what is true and false about the coronavirus compared to white adults (35%).

The research from week six shows that:

• the majority of respondents (94%) continued to access news about the coronavirus at least once a day. But only 8% of people now access news about the pandemic at least 20 times a day, compared with a quarter (24%) in week one;
• women are more likely than men to be actively avoiding news about the virus (37% vs. 29%); and
• fewer people have come across false or misleading information about Coronavirus in the last week (47% vs 50% in week five). Only 4% of people forwarded or shared the misinformation, compared with 7% in week one.

Ofcom will now be publishing the key findings from this research on a fortnightly basis. To access the research, click here.