Introduction
As we near the end of the first week of lockdown here in the UK, many of us are already wondering how we’ll survive weeks (or potentially months) of not being able to venture far from home. Cleaning the house or reorganising the wardrobe only takes up so much time, so what have people been up to once the common household tasks have been exhausted?
By using fresh worldwide data from Google Trends, we’ve worked out which hobbies and activities have experienced a significant surge of interest since the beginning of March. From card games to learning how to juggle, this is what people have been distracting themselves with over the last few weeks.
Key Findings
- With gyms closing across the globe it’s no real surprise that ‘bodyweight exercise’ has experienced the biggest resurgence, experiencing a 245% increase in search interest since the beginning of March.
- Following closely behind is ‘video call’, with ‘Zoom’, ‘Skype’ and other video conferencing solutions also experiencing a spike in popularity.
- People are keen to learn a new skill, with searches such as ‘online courses’ ‘how to juggle’ experience growths of 127% and 75% respectively.
- Despite claims of food shortages, ‘cooking’, ‘baking’ and ‘pickling’ have also spiked in interest.
- ‘Starting a youtube channel’ is also in the top 5 increases, with people hoping to gain fame through an online following.
Methodology & Sources
All data was sourced through Google Trends, looking at worldwide data from the beginning of March until the time of writing (27th March), and calculating the % increase in search interest. The exact query used can be seen in the ‘Trends Search’ column of the infographic. Raw data is available upon request.
