My neck, my back, my home setup is wack

According to our latest Qriously survey, 29% of people globally are working from home due to the Covid-19 outbreak. That’s millions of people having to create a home workspace from scratch.

There’s a myriad of problems with this, but today we’re focusing on the physical side. Being sat in the same chair all day isn’t good for your posture, especially in a seat not made for the job. And that’s before you’ve even started setting up your monitor, mouse, and keyboard.

We weren’t surprised, then, to find a sharp rise in people talking about back and neck pain online.

From January last year to February this year, English-language mentions of back pain remained pretty steady, hovering around 45k a week. Then, in the two weeks from March 9, as lockdowns were enforced and a pandemic declared, they dropped. Presumably, people had other things to talk about, or they were pretty happy with their working-from-the-couch set up.

But then the inevitable happened. As time wore on and people spent hours and hours on uncomfortable or poorly designed chairs, sitting at painful angles, mentions of back and neck issues rose.

They hit their highest the week of April 20, with 61k online complaints – a 28% increase on the first week of March. That is a huge rise and predicts a worrying increase in severe health issues if people have to work from home long term. Meanwhile, Google searches for ergonomic equipment are shooting upwards.

While work is one of the main drivers of the problem, it isn’t the only one.

Looking at the topics associated with back and neck pain during the pandemic, work is way out in front. But sleep gets mentioned a lot, too. We’ve already reported how sleep has been negatively affected by Covid-19, and pain (as well as insomnia) could be a large part of this.

All in all, anything that prohibits physical health at the moment, when we’re stuck indoors and moving around less than usual, should ring alarm bells. Employers should be particularly concerned by this – if they’re not making efforts to improve working from home conditions already, they best start now.

Out of stock

Stockpiling and shop supplies have been major issues the world over due to Covid-19. From toilet paper to flour, people have struggled to buy the items they usually would.

Using Qriously, we surveyed thousands of adults across eight countries over the last seven weeks through their smartphones and tablets. One of the questions we’ve asked is if they’ve faced problems buying the items they normally would.¹

This is what they told us.

Overall, this issue seems to be lessening. In our latest survey, 30% of respondents said they were having problems. This is down from 41% in our first survey.

In the latest survey, the US and the UK had the highest proportion of respondents saying they’re having difficulties getting the items on their usual shopping lists, with 47% and 40% respectively.

China and Spain have the lowest % of respondents reporting that they’re struggling with the issue, at 16% and 17% respectively. Having said that, these two countries are the only ones to report a rise in our latest survey.

All in all, the ongoing trend across our surveys is looking good, with a decrease in the overall average each time. Nevertheless, the problem is still affecting a significant amount of people. Let’s hope things keep moving in a positive direction.

Half of people are avoiding visiting close relatives

The pandemic has been tough on people’s social lives. In a matter of weeks, new measures meant that many could no longer chat with colleagues in the work kitchen, grab a drink with friends, or check in on family.

It’s an especially important issue when you consider elderly people who may rely on their families to clean their homes, pay social visits, and generally care for them. Now, much of this in-person contact has been cut off.

Using Qriously, we looked into how many people this was affecting. We surveyed thousands of adults from Australia, China, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, and the US through their smartphones and tablets, asking them if Covid-19 meant they were avoiding visiting their relatives.¹

Here’s what they said.

We can see that the issue is beginning to fall. The proportion of our respondents avoiding close relatives peaked at 59% in our April 3 – 7 survey. This has fallen to 50% in our two most recent surveys.

But when we look more closely, differing national pictures emerge.

China stands out with the lowest number of people avoiding close relatives. Their latest figure of 28%, compared to the 44% we recorded in our March 15 – 21 survey, reveals a significant drop that marries with the country’s falling case numbers and the easing of restrictions.

The UK sits on the other end of the spectrum. The country is still reporting high levels of relative avoidance, sitting at 68%. While avoidance is slightly up this week, they’ve seen a bigger drop over time, having previously reported a figure of 74% in our April 7 – 14 survey.

Spain also saw an increase in people avoiding their close relatives. The rise for the UK is just 1%, but Spain’s number is up by 6%. Clearly, and perhaps encouragingly, many are still wary of spreading Covid-19 to their loved ones.

What our data shows is that normality is still far off in the future. 50% of people avoiding close relatives is a staggering figure, with some potentially severe social repercussions.

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Brandwatch Response Team

¹ Note: All surveys are subject to a wide range of potential sources of error. On the basis of the historical record of the polls at recent general elections, there is a 9 in 10 chance that the true value of a survey result lies within 4 points of the estimates provided by this survey, and a 2 in 3 chance that they lie within 2 points.