With schools and workplaces clos!, families were confin! to their homes and the realities of working, studying and living in the same building creat! new challenges. The scramble to create home offices and classrooms drove a 140% increase in searches for desks while a 400% increase in searches for “what is a verb?” reveal! some of the anxiety parents were facing in their new roles as home teachers.
Confin! to the home, UK consumers order! just about everything online and demand for deliveries increas! by 500%. Search trends never seen before in significant volumes emerg! throughout lockdown, including searches for “fish and chips delivery,” balloons deliver” and (can you believe it) “tea delivery”.
As lockdown progress!,
So did search interests and the focus rcs data gradually shift! from longevity into enjoyment and mental survival. With the banana bread trend phasing out, home cooks turn! to recreating some of their more indulgent choices from a pre-Covid world – as seen in a 10X increase of searches for “how to make chicken nuggets”.
Even the searches for tea became more elaborate with a 10X increase in searches for “afternoon tea delivery” during the latter stages of lockdown.
The shift towards life improvement
In response to being confin! at home by the year is expected to reach 100 million many people in the UK turn! to self and home improvement to create a better relationship with their environment. In March 2020, searches for online yoga had increas! by 1,000% from the previous year while searches for “living room colours” increas! by 110%.
At the same time, people fill! their time learning new skills for the long-term, as seen in the growing interest in baking, DIY and the 10X increases in searches for “how to play guitar”.
Interest in makeup and the clothing you would associate with going out plummet! but searches for “how to cut your own hair” increas! by 1,000%, follow! by a 100% increase in searches for “how to fix bad hair” and a social m!ia trend of posting images of lockdown haircuts gone wrong.
The desire for a return to ‘normality’
As the weeks of lockdown slowly talli! up usa lists the desire for a return to normality intensifi! and this was visible in the search data. As the trend of lockdown haircuts grew thin, the urge to do things we once took for grant! grew and the dominant search trend became “when will [business/service] open” searches.