Assessing the impact of the coronavirus lockdown on unhappiness, loneliness, and boredom using Google Trends

TL;DR

This study uses Google Trends data to analyze how COVID-19 lockdowns in Europe and America affected mental health indicators, revealing increased searches for boredom, loneliness, worry, and sadness, indicating potential mental health impacts.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach using Google Trends to causally assess the impact of lockdowns on well-being-related search behavior across regions.

Findings

Increased searches for boredom, loneliness, worry, and sadness during lockdowns.

Decreased searches for stress, suicide, and divorce.

Lockdowns may have severely affected mental health.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has led many governments to implement lockdowns. While lockdowns may help to contain the spread of the virus, it is possible that substantial damage to population well-being will result. This study relies on Google Trends data and tests whether the lockdowns implemented in Europe and America led to changes in well-being related topic search terms. Using different methods to evaluate the causal effects of lockdown, we find a substantial increase in the search intensity for boredom in Europe and the US. We also found a significant increase in searches for loneliness, worry and sadness, while searches for stress, suicide and divorce on the contrary fell. Our results suggest that people's mental health may have been severely affected by the lockdown.