Quarantine in China spurs big increase in screen time
Learning language joins games, movies
Trapped at home with the outbreak of COVID-19 triggered by the new coronavirus, people in China have been turning their attention to their screens.
That might mean scrolling TikTok for videos or Netflix for movies to get through the long days of being quarantined as a way to prevent the spread of a new virus. Or it might mean using the time to learn a new language — and testing proficiency in it.
Duolingo, an East Liberty-based startup that helps people learn languages through its mobile application, offers its own digital version of an English-language proficiency test that international students need to apply for things like admission to American colleges and universities.
In the past month, Duolingo has seen a 200% increase in test-taking activity, said the company’s head of public relations, Sam Dalsimer.
At the same time, the company has received three times as many
inquiries from schools that want to add the test to its admissions process. Since 2016, Duolingo’s test has been an alternative to traveling to a designated test center and spending hours working with pencil and paper.
“The trend had been a steady increase in test takers and in schools accepting [the test], and a lot more schools had been coming on board lately. The coronavirus has been accelerating the pace,” Mr. Dalsimer said. “We’re learning new information every day about other testing delays and closures happening in different countries. … It’s unclear how much it will continue, how wide it will grow.”
Duolingo, which also saw a 100% increase in active users in China in the past month, is one of many digital platforms seeing a silver lining to the virus, which has already disrupted the global economy. The company did not disclose its user totals.
Whether to document their quarantine experience with a TikTok video or to battle each other in Tencent’s latest video game, people in China logged 26% more screen time during this year’s Chinese New Year holiday than last year, according to research from China-based mobile developer service provider Aurora Mobile Limited.
TikTok users doubled their time spent on the app, logging 122 minutes daily watching and recording short video clips during this year’s Chinese New Year, compared with 68 minutes during the same time in 2019, according to Aurora Mobile.
Chinese mobile games increased net sales by 32% in the first week of February compared with the prior year, based on data from Sensor Tower — a San Francisco-based company that covers the app economy — reviewed by Bloomberg Intelligence.
In February, Netflix saw a 1% increase in downloads worldwide and a 28% increase in Asia, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence analysis.
The coronavirus cannot take all the credit for increased traffic on some platforms. Netflix, for example, also has been pushing more original content for international markets — more than doubling the number of new original series it offers from 60 to 130, according to Geetha Ranganathan, senior media analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
Duolingo started a marketing effort to increase its presence in China more than a year ago, Mr. Dalsimer said. With a team of 10 based in Beijing, the company now consistently sees China ranked among its top 10 markets, he said.
But the surge since the quarantines began also has had an impact, and the “pockets” of growth show some promise for companies, said Anand Srinivasan, senior tech analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
Still, problems are coming. Mobile platforms don’t exist in their own network, he said, and are not immune to the economic impact of people staying at home.
“People ask me, ‘Oh, are all the video game companies doing really well?’ The answer to that is: You might be playing a lot more video games, but you’re not going out and buying new video games. You’re not going out and buying new hardware to play video games,” Mr. Srinivasan said. “You’re spending arguably way too much time on your screen, but you’re not buying your fourth TV.”
Already, the coronavirus that triggers the COVID-19 infection has proved that it can shut down factories, mess up supply chains across the globe and disrupt stock markets. The tech industry is no exception.
Venture capital firm Sequoia Capital sent a letter advising founders to reevaluate spending plans and headcount. Numerous tech conferences, including South by Southwest and events for Facebook and Google developers, have been canceled. In an attempt to mitigate the spread of the virus, Twitter told employees to work from home. And the closure of plants that build iPhones and stores that sell them caused Apple to adjust its projected quarterly earnings.
In China, the spread of the coronavirus affected the supply of tech products being manufactured. As the virus starts to spread to the U.S., it will affect demand, Mr. Srinivasan said.
“It’s going to dampen consumer spending. It’s going to dampen both wages as well as earnings and that leaves very little discretionary spending — so maybe you put off your 5G phone until 2021,” he said.
“This is not an economic pinch; this is far more basic and fear-driven. …You have to address that in order to get people comfortable with spending more on high-end gizmos.”
Despite all of the mobile apps, streaming services and online games seeing a surge in numbers, Jason Hong, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science, worries that the gain is only short term.
What happens, he asked, when people run out of money for their Netflix subscription or when Netflix employees can’t come in to work?
“There’s no solutions, only trade-offs,” Mr. Hong said. “There’s going to be a lot of bad and hopefully some good that comes out of this, too.”