Digital quarantine : does social distancing lead to virtual distancing?

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, public health officials actively promoted messaging on quarantine, isolation, and social distancing to reduce viral transmission and keep people safe. This paper examines the possibility of spillover effects that isolation-oriented interventions may have in a non-physical domain, specifically digital behaviors. While users indeed spend more time online during the pandemic, this may also manifest as a meaningful change in digital behaviors—people are engaging less online. Evidence from four studies reveal that users are sharing less news content, commenting less on discussion boards, engaging less with popular social media accounts, and even changing their search query behavior to fulfill peripheral safety needs (i.e., anti-virus software) in the wake of the pandemic. This paper documents an unintended consequence of isolation rhetoric in health promotion and, by identifying changes to our digital behaviors, this paper suggests ways to develop interventions to bolster social connectedness and collective mental health.