A Tale of Two Countries: A Longitudinal Cross-Country Study of Mobile Users' Reactions to the COVID-19 Pandemic Through the Lens of App Popularity

TL;DR

This study analyzes how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced mobile app popularity in China and the US over six months, revealing country-specific patterns and the pandemic's impact on mobile usage behaviors.

Contribution

It provides a cross-country longitudinal analysis of app popularity changes during COVID-19, highlighting the pandemic's influence on mobile interaction patterns.

Findings

App category rankings are correlated with pandemic trajectories.

Country-specific differences significantly affect app popularity trends.

The pandemic altered daily mobile interaction behaviors.

Abstract

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted people's life around the world, including how they interact with mobile technologies. In this paper, we seek to develop an understanding of how the dynamic trajectory of a pandemic shapes mobile phone users' experiences. Through the lens of app popularity, we approach this goal from a cross-country perspective. We compile a dataset consisting of six-month daily snapshots of the most popular apps in the iOS App Store in China and the US, where the pandemic has exhibited distinct trajectories. Using this longitudinal dataset, our analysis provides detailed patterns of app ranking during the pandemic at both category and individual app levels. We reveal that app categories' rankings are correlated with the pandemic, contingent upon country-specific development trajectories. Our work offers rich insights into how the COVID-19, a typical global public health crisis, has influence people's day-to-day interaction with the Internet and mobile technologies.