How have the hobbies of Americans changed due to isolation?

COVID-19 has forced most of Americans 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: movie theaters by 90 percent, theater — 84 percent, concerts — 78 percent. Americans also lost interest in foreign languages (decrease of 29 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 (347 percent) which means that people probably look for alternatives to gyms and fitness clubs. It was followed by tinkering (192 percent), and board games.

Online courses, such as Udemy, placed 7^th with a 92 percent increaseThere is a possibility that the uncertain situation in the labour market has made Internet users seek opportunities to gain additional qualifications. Various creative activities and crafts, like sewing (128 percent) or crocheting (113 percent) have also gained popularity.

Among activities which increased by a relatively slow margin are crosswords (8 percent) and collage (5 percent).

Do you also enjoy online games? In Zavvi, Green Man Gaming, Codashop, G2A, and Gamefly you can buy video games and codes. Picodi will help you save money on each purchase with cashback. All you have to do is create an account and activate cashback before your purchase.

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 the United States since 2019.

Picodi Analysis Department

The unit was established in 2017, and it analyses the market, consumer activities, prices of products and services, as well as wages.

• Head of Department: Nikolay Kashcheev
• Researchers: Katarzyna Kobyłka, Paweł Stolarczyk, Irina Egurtsova
• Graphic Design: Daria Ponomareva