LIFESTYLE CHANGES DUE TO COVID-19 INCREASE DIGITAL ADOPTION BY OLDER ADULTS • UPDATE ON CONFERENCES

The ongoing Covid-19 situation is causing older folks to change the ways they access news and information. According to an article published last week by Next Avenue [link], new technology has become a critical part of life during the pandemic.

Before the crisis, millions of older Americans purchased smartphones. Now they are using them like never before. Some observers are saying it a breakthrough in new media adoption that will make lasting changes in media usage.

This is important for public radio because older listeners constitute a sizable portion of the audience.

Even before the pandemic, many older folks were becoming comfortable using digital devices. Next Avenue cites an AARP study that says 51% of U.S. older adults purchased a digital communication device during the past year. Now, during the crisis, this trend has increased at rapid rate.

The Covid-19 outbreak has also changed the perception of working from home. Once called "telecommuting," being at work no longer means being at the workplace. People working from home, or in other remote places, was about 5% of the workforce prior to the pandemic. Now with social distancing and stay-at-home lock-downs, it is a "new normal."

The trend of working from home has accelerated in recent years, aided by a new breed of business-focused group chat apps like Slack {link] and more reliable, user-friendly videoconferencing tools. 

Anecdotally, many people seem to like distant working.”

 

Chart showing the rapid rise of infected Americans

They may want to work that way after the virus subsides.

Social isolation has also caused people to use video-chat services to talk with family and friends. 

Once people become familiar with how to do a video chat, they will likely do it more frequently. Most sites are free. For instance, Zoom [link] has become an increasingly popular for folks in isolation.

PRPD/JACOBS MEDIA COVID-19 WEBINAR HAPPENS THIS THURSDAY

To better understand the impact of the Covid-19 crisis, PRPD and Jacobs Media are hosting a webinar this Thursday (4-16) at 2:00pm ET. The webinar is free and is open to all public media folks.

The webinar will present top-line results of the survey. It was conducted last week and over 16,000 public radio listeners from 47 participated. RPD member stations.

The survey results will include the percentage of the listeners that are in “stay at home” mode, their employment status, their feelings about the economy, how much they are listening to radio, as well as other media. The survey also probed how listeners feel about public radio fundraising at this critical time and what more they are looking for from public media.

To register for the webinar click here.

On Thursday Sparks News will begin publish Nielsen Audio's PPM ratings for March.

UPDATE: CONFERENCES OF INTEREST TO PUBLIC MEDIA FOLKS

We contacted Joyce MacDonald on Monday to inquire about the status of the Public Media Development and Marketing Conference (PMDMC), scheduled for July 21-24 in Atlanta. She sent us this message:

“The PMDMC is still on but we're watching everything closely - thanks for checking.”

More information about the PMDMC is here.

More information about the Super Regional is here.

More information about Americana Fest is here.