Pandemic in the digital age: analyzing WhatsApp communication behavior before, during, and after the COVID-19 lockdown
Abstract The strict restrictions introduced by the COVID-19 lockdowns, which started from March 2020, changed people’s daily lives and habits on many different levels. In this work, we investigate the impact of the lockdown on the communication behavior in the mobile instant messaging application Wh...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Springer Nature
2022-04-01
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| Series: | Humanities & Social Sciences Communications |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01161-0 |
| _version_ | 1818278924971409408 |
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| author | Anika Seufert Fabian Poignée Tobias Hoßfeld Michael Seufert |
| author_facet | Anika Seufert Fabian Poignée Tobias Hoßfeld Michael Seufert |
| author_sort | Anika Seufert |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract The strict restrictions introduced by the COVID-19 lockdowns, which started from March 2020, changed people’s daily lives and habits on many different levels. In this work, we investigate the impact of the lockdown on the communication behavior in the mobile instant messaging application WhatsApp. Our evaluations are based on a large dataset of 2577 private chat histories with 25,378,093 messages from 51,973 users. The analysis of the one-to-one and group conversations confirms that the lockdown severely altered the communication in WhatsApp chats compared to pre-pandemic time ranges. In particular, we observe short-term effects, which caused an increased message frequency in the first lockdown months and a shifted communication activity during the day in March and April 2020. Moreover, we also see long-term effects of the ongoing pandemic situation until February 2021, which indicate a change of communication behavior towards more regular messaging, as well as a persisting change in activity during the day. The results of our work show that even anonymized chat histories can tell us a lot about people’s behavior and especially behavioral changes during the COVID-19 pandemic and thus are of great relevance for behavioral researchers. Furthermore, looking at the pandemic from an Internet provider perspective, these insights can be used during the next pandemic, or if the current COVID-19 situation worsens, to adapt communication networks to the changed usage behavior early on and thus avoid network congestion. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-12T23:25:10Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-2c6ab766455a4ad68074f67b67c77183 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2662-9992 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-12T23:25:10Z |
| publishDate | 2022-04-01 |
| publisher | Springer Nature |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Humanities & Social Sciences Communications |
| spelling | doaj.art-2c6ab766455a4ad68074f67b67c771832022-12-22T00:08:06ZengSpringer NatureHumanities & Social Sciences Communications2662-99922022-04-01911910.1057/s41599-022-01161-0Pandemic in the digital age: analyzing WhatsApp communication behavior before, during, and after the COVID-19 lockdownAnika Seufert0Fabian Poignée1Tobias Hoßfeld2Michael Seufert3University of WürzburgUniversity of WürzburgUniversity of WürzburgUniversity of WürzburgAbstract The strict restrictions introduced by the COVID-19 lockdowns, which started from March 2020, changed people’s daily lives and habits on many different levels. In this work, we investigate the impact of the lockdown on the communication behavior in the mobile instant messaging application WhatsApp. Our evaluations are based on a large dataset of 2577 private chat histories with 25,378,093 messages from 51,973 users. The analysis of the one-to-one and group conversations confirms that the lockdown severely altered the communication in WhatsApp chats compared to pre-pandemic time ranges. In particular, we observe short-term effects, which caused an increased message frequency in the first lockdown months and a shifted communication activity during the day in March and April 2020. Moreover, we also see long-term effects of the ongoing pandemic situation until February 2021, which indicate a change of communication behavior towards more regular messaging, as well as a persisting change in activity during the day. The results of our work show that even anonymized chat histories can tell us a lot about people’s behavior and especially behavioral changes during the COVID-19 pandemic and thus are of great relevance for behavioral researchers. Furthermore, looking at the pandemic from an Internet provider perspective, these insights can be used during the next pandemic, or if the current COVID-19 situation worsens, to adapt communication networks to the changed usage behavior early on and thus avoid network congestion.https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01161-0 |
| spellingShingle | Anika Seufert Fabian Poignée Tobias Hoßfeld Michael Seufert Pandemic in the digital age: analyzing WhatsApp communication behavior before, during, and after the COVID-19 lockdown Humanities & Social Sciences Communications |
| title | Pandemic in the digital age: analyzing WhatsApp communication behavior before, during, and after the COVID-19 lockdown |
| title_full | Pandemic in the digital age: analyzing WhatsApp communication behavior before, during, and after the COVID-19 lockdown |
| title_fullStr | Pandemic in the digital age: analyzing WhatsApp communication behavior before, during, and after the COVID-19 lockdown |
| title_full_unstemmed | Pandemic in the digital age: analyzing WhatsApp communication behavior before, during, and after the COVID-19 lockdown |
| title_short | Pandemic in the digital age: analyzing WhatsApp communication behavior before, during, and after the COVID-19 lockdown |
| title_sort | pandemic in the digital age analyzing whatsapp communication behavior before during and after the covid 19 lockdown |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01161-0 |
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