When it comes to self-isolating, social distancing, and avoiding seeing close relatives, there’s a distinct trend. The number of people reporting this behavior jumped at the end of March as national lockdowns were enforced in Germany, Australia, and the UK, and peaked the following week.

From there the numbers either fell or went unchanged week-on-week, reaching their lowest point in our latest study. Currently, 46% of people reported they are self isolating or social distancing, while 42% reported they’re avoiding seeing close relatives.

In comparison, the use of hand sanitizer has remained stable throughout. Around 50% of people reported using hand sanitizer or increasing the regularity of its use every week.

Given that these don’t line up with significant changes to lockdown rules across countries, the data suggests that people are engaging in particular behaviors regardless of the current state of the outbreak or government orders.

When we look at the country level, disparity between them becomes quite clear.

In Italy those self-isolating or social distancing is relatively low, with just 25% of respondents reporting the behavior. The next lowest number for this is Germany’s at 36%. It’s hard to say why Italy’s number is so low. While the number of new cases reported daily has dropped massively since their peak, lockdowns are still in place.

On the other end of the scale is the UK, reporting the highest numbers for both behaviors. 63% of UK respondents reported they are avoiding seeing close relatives, while 57% reported they were self-isolating or social distancing.

With the UK being one of the hardest hit countries in the world, and with strict lockdowns still in place, it is little surprise they top the list. Although we may see a change as the government plans to raise some restrictions soon.

Keeping fit: Cycling, running, watersports, and yoga thrive

We’ve been using our Consumer Research platform to investigate how people are keeping fit, gathering English-language mentions of cycling, home gyms, running, watersports, and yoga on social media during lockdown. Despite some restrictions being eased, and businesses steadily reopening, people are still loving the solo fitness activities that keep them away from big crowds.

The online discussion size around these topics varied massively, with running seeing far more conversation than the other activities.

To compare how these trends have changed over time, we indexed them to the week beginning March 9, and tracked how volumes changed compared to that date.

Interest in yoga saw the biggest relative increase out of the four activities we studied. It’s also had a lot of movement, as trends have come and gone.

Cycling initially saw a fall in interest, with mentions falling by as much as 10% in the weeks following March 9. But things have changed – interest has risen every week since April 13, and is now up 13% compared to the first week we studied. This is likely due to weather improving, new bikes being sourced from dealerships, and lockdowns beginning to ease.

Speaking of warmer weather, interest in watersports like surfing, paddleboarding, and kayaking was also bubbling away in May, peaking last week. Interest is currently up by 45% compared to the week of March 9, and we’re likely to see that rise.

Now on to home gyms. We couldn’t include this topic in our previous chart as its huge spike in interest under lockdown dwarfed all others. As the chart below shows, there was an incredible jump in interest the week of March 16 as people prepared to keep fit indoors.

The spike was very short-lived, though. In recent weeks we’ve found people are talking about being hopeful their gyms will open soon, how their home gyms were being made redundant, or how it isn’t worth the investment to get new equipment in. Nevertheless, interest is still way up on pre-pandemic levels, so the home gym isn’t over yet.

It’s clear people on social media have been getting out and about more, and these activities offer a great way to practice mindfulness and get out of the house while maintaining a safe distance. Post-lockdown, we’ll see if these trends remain popular.

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Brandwatch Response Team