DISSERTATION PROJECT REPORT

Project Title:
Analysis on how the corona virus has changed the way
people of US use Internet

Submitted By:

Amar Sanjay Kadam (PRN No - 19020241127)

MBA – International Business – 2019 - 2021
Symbiosis Institute of International Business

Under the guidance of

Mr. Venkatesh Iyengar – Faculty mentor.

CONTENTS
1. Acknowledgement 3
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.

2. Context of study 4
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.

3. Results & Analysis 5

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.

4. References (including bibliography & web references) 10

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 Acknowledgement

I had the pleasure to do a Dissertation report at SIIB on the topic, Analysis on how the
corona virus has changed the way people of US use Internet. I was a great knowledge
booster for me and I got to learn many interesting things.

I would like to offer my regards to the placement officer at SIIB, Anuja Zanzad madam
for being supportive and cooperative at all times and making sure that the students
develop an all-round personality.

I would like to thank my faculty mentor, Venkatesh Iyengar who has been helping me
achieve greater heights always. He is a patient listener and gives appropriate advice to
all my problems. He is a true guide and philosopher.

I take this opportunity as a stepping stone towards success in my professional career. I

am overwhelmed and positive to keep working on similar lines. I would always give my
best to accomplish each and every task assigned to me.

Regards,

Amar Kadam.

Mumbai.

10th March 2021.

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 CONTEXT OF STUDY

Due to the Covid pandemic, the movie halls and restaurants are closed. This has caused the Americans
to remain at house arrest. This has in return increased the amount of time an average individual spends
on the internet being online.

A New York Times analysis of the web usage in the US from two online data providers SimilarWeb
and Apptopia has proven that the generic behavior of Americans has changed and they have adopted a
more device friendly approach to accomplish their tasks, may it be work or play.

There have been many changes in the lifestyle of people. The most prominent ones are highlighted.

 Seeking entertainment and connecting, but not through phone

 Connecting through video conferencing due to social distance norms

 Work from home policies causing heavy use of onlinse meet apps

 Gathering genuine information about the virus and current updates

 Increasing popularity of video games with sports fading out

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 RESULT AND ANALYSIS

Seeking entertainment and connecting, but not through phone

All the social gatherings, parties and get to gathers have been banned hence the Americans have
resorted to a sedentary mode of life, enjoying at their homes with OTT platforms like Netflix,
Youtube, etc. The social media usage to pass away time has also increased tremendously with a drastic
rise in the use of social media platforms like Facebook, Whatsap and Instagram.

Lately, due to the rise in use of social media, the mobile phones industry was on boom. But due to the
pandemic, people were at home and hence had easy accessibility to laptops and computers. The
Americans now feel how cumbersome it was to operate on small screens of mobile phones.

Thus due to these reasons, the traffic of users on the websites of Facebook, Youtube, Netflix, etc has
increased and the traffic on these applications has reduced drastically. The data was collected across
various sources over the internet hence can be considered genuine and valid.

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 Connecting through video conferencing due to social distance norms

As the lockdown persists, people of the US have explored new ways to connect to each other over
voice and video calls. It is not possible to meet each other in person, hence people have explored ways
to get a same feel like meeting in person. These activities have increased the use of video calling
applications by a huge amount.

Some of these applications are Google Duo, Netdoor.com, Houseparty. People have been flexible and
adapting themselves according to the lock down restrictions.

Work from home policies causing heavy use of onlinse meet apps

With work from home policies implemented and the mode of education been shifted to online, the use of
Google classrooms and Zoom for online classes and Microsoft teams for conducting office meetings
has increased on a large scale.
These applications have proved very useful to accomplish the day to day tasks smoothly and
efficiently.

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Gathering genuine information about the virus and current updates

Amidst the pandemic, with the cases of positive patients increasing day by day and the death toll
rising, the Americans are curious to know the latest updates about their hometown. This has caused a
rise in the number of people reading newspapers, local and international. This in turn has increased the
traffic of readers over local newspaper sites. People are in want of latest updates ad information
related to Covid.

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The Americans are trying to seek genuine information regarding the crisis. Hence they have resorted
to reading information from trusted sources like the New York Time and the Washington Post. This
has increased the traffic of users on these official websites by around 50 % in the recent months.

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People are enthusiastic to know in more details about the virus. Hence the use of Wikipedia has also
increased tremendously over the past few months. There is a peak seen I the number of users
accessing the government official websites highlighting the daily updates over the number of cases,
deaths and hotspot locations in the region.

Increasing popularity of video games with sports fading out

The pandemic has affected the sports as well. Most sports are upheld or cancelled. This has drastically
reduced the viewership of some of the sports channels like ESPN, etc. Also there is a spike in the
number of people engaged in online gaming. The applications like TikkTokk have gained tremendous
popularity among teenagers. Also people have engaged themselves in various online games.

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 REFERENCES

Google.com
Nytimes.com
Similar web
Apptopia

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