How have the hobbies of Malaysians changed due to isolation?

COVID-19 has forced most of Malaysians 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.

After evaluating statistics, it turned out that all activities that require leaving home have become less popular: cinema dropped by 77 per cent, concerts — 44 per cent, theatre — 40 per cent. Malaysians also lost interest in foreign languages (decrease of 39 per cent). Probably it’s no longer such a sought-after ability in the world of closed borders.

The biggest increase of interest was noted in online games (144 per cent), PC games (133 per cent), and board games. Cooking and listening to podcasts rounded out the top five hobbies in recent days.

Workout placed sixth with a 45 per cent increase, which means that people probably look for alternatives to gyms and fitness clubs. Various creative activities and crafts, like drawing (28 per cent) or painting (11 per cent) have also gained popularity.

Among activities which increased by a relatively slow margin are origami and puzzles (1 per cent both).

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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.