How have the hobbies of Canadians changed due to isolation?

PicodiApril 9, 2020

COVID-19 has forced most of Canadians to stay at home. The shutdown of points of interest, workplaces, schools, and universities has made a colossal difference in our daily lives.

Picodi.com Analysis Team investigated Google search queries and created a ranking of the activities which gained the biggest popularity in the times of pandemic.

Trapped at home

We took a closer look at the most popular hobbies and activities, such as cinema, books, games, and many others. We checked the frequency of search queries connected to these activities in March 2020 and compared them with March of the previous year.

Coronavirus lockdown is changing Canadians' hobbies

After evaluating statistics, it turned out that all activities that require leaving home have become less popular: movie theaters by 83 percent, concerts — 77 percent, theater — 70 percent. Canadians also lost interest in foreign languages (decrease of 14 percent). Probably it’s no longer such a sought-after ability in the world of closed borders.

The biggest increase of interest was noted in home gym (313 percent) which means that people probably look for alternatives to gyms and fitness clubs. It was followed by online courses (200 percent) — there is a possibility that the uncertain situation in the labour market has made Internet users seek opportunities to gain additional qualifications. Online games rounded out the top three with increase by 171 percent.

Various creative activities and crafts, like needlework (153 percent) or calligraphy (102 percent) have also gained popularity.

Among activities which increased by a relatively slow margin are yoga (7 percent) and dancing (3 percent).

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Methodology

The research is based on the changes in the popularity of various keywords in March 2020 compared with March of the previous year, according to Google archival data (through Google Trends).

Public Use

Feel free to use all the data and infographics presented in this report for both commercial and non-commercial purposes as long as you indicate the author of the research (Picodi.com) with a link to this subpage. If you have any questions, please contact us: research@picodi.com.

About Picodi

Picodi is an international e-commerce platform which provides discount coupons for online stores. Founded in 2010 in Kraków, it currently operates in 44 countries and is listed in FT1000 ranking of Europe’s fastest-growing companies. In Canada since 2019.