JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The World Health Organization (WHO) considers the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as a public emergency threatening global health. In the current investigation, we focus on the public’s need for online information and communication during the crisis. From digital inequality research, we know that internet access is not evenly distributed among the general population.

Objective:

To provide a timely understanding of how different people use the internet for information and communication needs, and what outcomes they gain therefrom in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. To reveal to what extent gender, age, education, economic and social capital, health, personality, literacy, online trust, and internet attitude remain important for obtaining internet outcomes after people are involved in the corresponding uses.

Methods:

This study uses an online survey and draws upon a sample collected in the Netherlands. We obtained a dataset with 2,234 respondents over the age of 18.

Results:

Women are more likely to be involved in COVID-19 communication uses. Age is negatively related to COVID-19 communication uses and both outcomes. Education has a positive relationship with COVID-19 information and communication uses. Economic capital is positively related to COVID-19 information uses, and social capital negatively to COVID-19 communication uses. Physical health has a negative relation to information uses and both outcomes. Health perception contributes positively to communication uses and outcomes. Agreeableness is negatively related to both outcomes and to communication uses. Neuroticism is positively related to all uses and outcomes. Conscientiousness is not related to any of the uses and outcomes. Introversion is negatively related to COVID-19 communication uses, suggesting that this is performed more by extraverted people. Finally, openness relates positively to all uses and outcomes. Literacy has a negative relation to all uses and outcomes. Online trust contributes positively to communication uses and outcomes, and internet attitude is positively related to information uses and outcomes, but negatively to communication uses.

Conclusions:

Digital inequality is a major concern among national and international scholars and policy-makers. This contribution aimed to provide a broader understanding in the case of a major health pandemic by using the ongoing COVID-19 crisis as a context for the empirical work. Several groups of people were identified as vulnerable, for example the elderly, lower educated, those with physical health problems, higher levels of neuroticism, low literacy levels, or low levels of trust. The general conclusion is that those who are already relatively better off are more likely to use the internet’s information and communication opportunities to their benefit in a health pandemic, while the more disadvantaged individuals are less likely to take advantage. This makes the COVID-19 crisis also an enforcer of existing inequalities.