April 13, 2020 • 20 mins
Everyone is looking forward to how and when we can get back to work and get back to normal. We still have yet to hit the peak number of cases in the U.S. but some are hoping that testing for antibodies in the blood could help get us back. If you have antibodies to COVID-19 it means you already had the disease and could be immune, at least in the short term. Rachel Becker, reporter at CalMatters, joins us how antibody testing could help, but there are still many questions left to be answered.
Next, the virus has changed the way we internet. While some things may be obvious… people are starting to have more video chats with friends, family and co-workers, other aspects of the way we spend our time online can be surprising. People are moving away from their phones and using desktop computers more, people are consuming more news from local and established newspapers and less on partisan sites, and video games have seen an increase while sports have lost out. Nathaniel Popper, reporter at the NY Times, joins us for how we are spending our lives online during the pandemic.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Monday a I'm Oscar Ramiraz in Los Angeles, and
this is the daily dive. Everyone is looking forward to
how and when we can get back to work and
get back to normal. We still have yet to hit
the peak number of cases in the United States, but
some are hoping that testing for antibodies in the blood
(00:21):
could help get us back. If you have anybodies to
COVID nineteen, it means you already had the disease and
could be immune, at least in the short term. Rachel Becker,
reporter at cal Matters, joins us for how antibody testing
could help, but there are still many questions left to
be answered next. The virus has changed the way we internet.
(00:41):
While some things maybe obvious, people are starting to have
more video chats with friends, family, and co workers, other
aspects of the way we spend our time online can
be surprising. People are moving away from their phones and
using desktop computers. More people are consuming more news from
local and established newspapers and less on partisan sites. And
deo games have seen an increase, while sports have lost out.
(01:03):
Nathaniel Popper, reporter at the New York Times, joins us
for how we are spending our lives online during the pandemic.
It's news without the noise. Let's dive in. There are
a couple of ways these antibody tests could be used epidemiologically.
They're really valuable for tracking the spread of the virus,
(01:24):
understanding the true fatality rate, and for being able to
see where it's spread, who gets sickest, who dozens and why.
Joining us now is Rachel Becker, reporter at cal Matters.
Thanks for joining us, Rachel, thanks for inviting me. Everyone
is very curious about how and when we can all
get back to normal, When can we start going back
(01:45):
to work, when can we start loosening up on the
social distancing. And one of the things that a lot
of people are pointing to and talking about is antibody testing.
You know, it shows that you might have gotten coronavirus
already and gotten over it. They're looking to people that
have gotten over to possibly harvest some of their plasma
to help others. But the other thing too, is okay,
so you have these antibodies, maybe you're immune to it
(02:09):
for a few months, a short period of time, we
can get back into the workforce, We can get back
to normal. So a lot of people are looking forward
to something like this, but there's still a lot of
questions about it. Rachel tell us a little bit about that.
Antibodies are immune proteins that attack viruses and other pathogens,
and they form as part of the immune response to
(02:29):
a virus like stars Covey to the virus that causes
the disease known as COVID nineteen. And so the hope
is that by testing for antibodies, researchers public health workers
will be able to identify those who have already had
the virus and who have fought it off and survived.
There are a couple of ways these antibody tests could
be used epidemiologically. They're really valuable for tracking the spread
(02:53):
of the virus, understanding the true fatality rate, and for
being able to see where it spread, who gets sickest,
who dozens and why. But then there's this other conversation
that's happening that you just mentioned about using antibody tests
to try to maybe selectively lift the shelter in place
order that we have here in California, and that's cropping
(03:15):
up across the country. You know, maybe folks who have
antibodies should be sent to the front lines. That's definitely
a possibility that's been floated. But healthcare professionals, scientists that
I've spoke to urge caution there's still a lot we
don't know about the immune response to uh stars, Covey too,
to the novel coronavirus. We don't know how strong the
(03:38):
antibody response is. We don't know what level of antibodies
are considered protective. We don't know if everybody makes the
right kinds of antibodies to be protective, and we don't
know how long that protection lasts. So they're just still
so many unknowns to to start putting people's safety on
the line. Testing, testing, testing, it's all about testing. We're
(04:00):
still barely it seems like we're getting starting to gain
a handle on actually testing people for the virus. But
on the antibody testing side, there are a few tests
that are there, and I know in some areas of
starting those tests on people, but we're still a little
ways from getting this ramped up. Yeah, there have definitely
been some studies that are going on across the country.
(04:21):
CDC has one, other research groups, Violent Research Institute and
others are using antibody tests to Again, you know trace
the virus um as an academic question. Stanford though recently
launched a lab developed test on April six at Stanford
Healthcare and the idea for that test is to determine
(04:42):
which healthcare workers might be at lower risk for working
with COVID nineteen patients. And I say, you know, lower
risk because we don't know exactly how much protection antibodies
confer at this time. Going back to whether you know
you get COVID nine team you get over it, and
if you have this immunity towards it enough, anybodies to
(05:04):
help you throughout that. There have been some studies, some
preliminary findings that I think they've done these studies and
monkeys they were infected maybe a month later they were
still immune to it. Tell us a little bit about
what we know on that, And I know, we don't
know much. It's just we're trying to piece it together
as we go. Yeah, we know so little about reinfection. Still,
there have been some reports of people potentially getting reinfected
(05:28):
with the novel coronavirus, but there is some doubt that
the folks who were reported as getting reinfected had actually
cleared the virus from their systems. It may have been
more of a flare up of the virus as as
they recovered and not reinfection. But researchers have done some
studies and monkeys where they infected the monkeys and then
(05:49):
you know, watched their inner bodies go up, and then
a month later they tried to reinfect the monkeys and
the monkeys were not susceptible to reinfection. So a bunch
of infectious disease experts out an article kind of just
assessing the state of coronavirus research, and they wrote that
that was reassuring. So we'll need a lot more of
these studies, will need a long term follow up of
(06:11):
people who have recovered to really understand it. But as those, uh,
the infectious disease experts wrote, it was reassuring about short
term immunity that's different from long term immunity and stars too,
I mean, like a loose cousin of COVID nineteen. They've
done some long term follow ups on people that survived
that and they've seen stuff that suggests some of their
(06:32):
antibodies lasted for about two years or so. But one
of the worst case scenarios that everybody we want to
avoid our you know, this false sense of security from it.
These tests are so new and we don't know much
about the stars COVIE two yet. Is that you know,
there could be some false positive test results things like that,
and we don't want to get some of these types
of test results and then send people back into the
workforce and have other outbreaks. Exactly exactly, and um, it's
(06:58):
it's possible with a poor designed test that it will
pick up antibodies to other coronaviruses, you know, not just
stars or mirrors, but also the mild coronavirus. Is that
folks might get seasonal cults from UH and so a
poorly designed test it's possible that it could pick up
those antibodies and then you get that false positive, and
(07:18):
that false positive is the worst case scenario where folks
will think that they're protected and that they're not. UH.
This could you know, if if this shelter in place
orders is lifted too soon on the basis of imperfect tests,
it could allow for the spread to ramp back up,
which is really I would be a terrible thing for
(07:40):
public health and for the hospitals that are already doing
the best they can to care for and to cope
with the patients they're seeing right now. We did mention
a bit ago about how there are some places that
are starting to do this type of testing, either Stanford
or the CDC. But do we have a sense of
when these might be able to be ramped up and
more people can start getting these type of tests. It's
(08:01):
really an open question, and it's an important question. Stanford
just launched it for healthcare workers. One test has received
emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. But
given the problems we've seen with the supply chain and
with ramping up of the diagnostic tests that look for
the virus, the called the PCR tests, I think it's
(08:23):
really an open question whether anibody tests will be able
to ramp up quickly and really, especially at the scale
we would need to start saying okay, like folks can
start re entering the workforce, life can start going back
to normal. Rachel Becker, reporter at cal Matters. Thank you
very much for joining us. Thanks so much for inviting me.
(08:52):
Is that house party? I think you had some history
of being popular. It had been training at some point,
but it was really kind of limping along and over
the last few weeks again, it's seen a traffic shoot
up and it allows essentially, and as the name would suggest,
people to gather together in a video chat room somewhat
like Zoom does, but there's also games involved. It's fun.
(09:15):
Joining us now is Nathaniel Popper, reporter at the New
York Times. Thanks for joining us, Nathaniel, Thank you for
having me. I wanted to talk a little bit about
how our lives have changed because of coronavirus, all the
social distancing that we're practicing. Obviously, Americans are spending a
lot more time at home and increasingly are living their
(09:35):
lives online. And these are things that we've been doing
for a long time, but now we have this kind
of moment to look and see how it's changing slightly.
We're always looking for different ways to entertain ourselves, whether
it's our Netflix or facebooks or YouTube's. But one thing
that's changing is that we're turning away slightly from our phones.
When the trend before that was everything was mobile. Everybody
(09:57):
was working on mobile platforms, how to pop of my
videos and things for mobile. We're taking a turn back.
We have our computers at home and we're working on
those things a little bit more. That was a really
interesting finding. Here. We put together a bunch of data
that we pulled to look at how our behavior changed
really in the course of just a few weeks, and
(10:18):
you see these pretty dramatic changes in online behavior that
is obviously very unusual, but these are unusual times. And
one of the things that stuck out to us was
that these sites that were seeking out for entertainment, for
social connections, so Facebook, Netflix, YouTube, all of those services
(10:39):
have seen the traffic on their apps declining at the
same time that their websites have seen just skyrocketing traffic.
So Facebook traffic to their website has gone up twenty
basically the matter of a few days, and their app
(11:00):
used to be what everybody was checking has sort of
been limping along. And I think it's almost as if
we're sort of remembering the virtue of looking at a
big computer screen rather than squinting down at our phone
all day, right exactly. We have the luxury of using
our desktops and our laptops more. The other thing, obviously,
this is one that we know video chats. It's definitely
(11:20):
having a moment right now. People are connecting all sorts
of ways on different apps. I mean, there's obviously face time,
there's Zoom is a huge one, but there's a few
other ones that people are gravitating towards right now because
they need something more than just the video chat. They
want fun backgrounds, and they want other stuff to help
kind of spruce that part of it up. It's really
notable that it feels like just sort of connecting by
(11:44):
text is not enough in this time where we can't
see people because of social distancing. We're not allowed to
get together with our friends and family, and so the
only way we can see each other is through video,
and that has helped a bunch of services that really
were not big ones before this house Party. I think
(12:06):
it had some history of being popular. It had been
training at some point, but it was really kind of
limping along, and over the last few weeks again it's
seen a traffic shoot up. And it allows essentially and
as the name would suggest, people to gather together in
a video chat room somewhat like Zoom does, but there's
also games involved. It's fun, it's about socializing, it's about
(12:30):
being together, it's not just about doing business. And just
specifically some friends posting up how they were on the
house party thing and I had to go look into
because I hadn't heard about it before. But yeah, that's
the exact same thing they we're doing, playing the games,
trying to have some fun other ways than just the
traditional video chat. This is more than FaceTime, and so
I think yes, so much of the changing patterns is
(12:52):
in that direction of finding ways to connect more deeply
when we're feeling cut off from each other. The other
sort of interesting trend in that direction is with our
neighbors and locally because we're thinking so much more about
the local businesses and our local community. Is coronavirus here
(13:12):
as it made it into the local hospital, what are
the numbers around me? And so on that front, you
have social media network next Door, which has been popular,
but it's still a relatively small player in the social
media world. But again it has just taken off over
the last few weeks. Obviously a lot of people are
working from home, students that have had their schools closed,
(13:34):
which is basically all of them, they're taking classes from home.
So on that front, Zoom has definitely having a moment
with a lot of students. Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams are Company,
I heart media. We're using Microsoft teams to connect and
do a virtual meetings and all that. So these are
also having a moment. But the thing that comes with
that is privacy concerns. I know Zoom specifically had a
(13:56):
lot of privacy concerns with zoom bombing, and a couple
of others as well. It feels like Zoom more than
any other company has benefited from this. I think there's
no company that's emerged from this more strongly. You've seen
their stock overtake Uber in terms of the size of
the company in the market capitalization. But along with that,
(14:17):
as so often I think happens in the tech world
when something takes off, as you realize that they're not
actually ready for prime time yet. And there have just
been this litany of security concerns that have come up,
people being able to log in, snoop on other people's traffic.
Of course, this issue of zoom bombing, where people basically intrude,
often in offensive ways, into other people's Zoom conferences. And
(14:41):
I think it's this inevitable tale of Silicon Valley where
it's not quite ready for the success that it has.
And that's why Zoom was so interesting to me on
how it took off, especially with schools and online classrooms.
Because of that, it was still fairly new and as
exactly as you said, when it's new and hot and
everybody wants to use it all the other a little
crack starts showing after that. It was very surprising to
(15:03):
me that Zoom took off so much because of that,
especially for online classes when you want something to be
a little more stable for the students, and obviously all
the privacy concerns there. It sort of is a reminder
of just how quickly behavior has changed. Obviously, video chat
was something that existed before, but it was not something
that all that many people were relying on before. It
was not something people were thinking about so much before. Obviously,
(15:26):
you know, I think in the business world, slack was
the big sort of trend, the big growth pattern, because
you're chatting with people in between seeing them. Now you
can't see them, and so you need a way to
do that, and Zoom has obviously been the place to go.
But it's going to be interesting to see as time
goes on how much people move back towards things like
Microsoft Teams, maybe hangouts from other places that have a
(15:49):
bit more of a track record especially with security. Now,
this next angle of how coronavirus has changed the way
we Internet, I think it's a good one. So people
have gone to their local newspaper sites and their local
TV stations. They've turned to them more for news updates.
They obviously want to know what's going on in their
communities a lot, and partisan sites those have maybe not
(16:13):
had huge decreases but at least stagnated at least with traffic,
and people are turning to a lot more large media
organizations sites that they trust, especially things like New York
Times and the Washington Post. You know when the President
says a lot of things like oh, fake news and whatnot,
and you know it has its place when things start
getting heavily politicized. But it's good to see that people
are turning to these local sites more now. There's definitely
(16:36):
a sense of the last few years have been all
about skepticism towards the media. Obviously, partisan news sites have
fed that skepticism of corporate media. But you come to
a time where you just want the facts, and I
think people are turning back to those traditional sources and saying,
(16:56):
if I just want the facts, this is still the
place I'm going to go. I don't necessarily want the opinions.
I want to know what the numbers are in my community,
what restaurants are shut down. I want to know how
much things are spreading. And so you're seeing more mainstream
sites which have in many ways struggled in recent years.
(17:17):
Those have been the places where people have been going.
And unfortunately this is not necessarily meant a great sort
of business boom for these companies because a lot of
these companies make most of their money from advertisers, and
so even if you have a lot of viewers, if
advertisers are sort of dropping out, which is what's happening
(17:37):
now with the economy, the sites are continuing to struggle.
Local newspapers are continuing to struggle economically even as their readership,
you know, is skyrocketing. Two sites that some big increases
c NBC, the Business news website has seen a huge
increase in the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Obviously,
people are pointing to them a lot hard numbers and
(17:59):
guidance on social distancing it and whatnot. So they've seen
big numbers. And the last section we want to talk
about video games. Obviously, sports have dropped off a huge bit.
Uh ESPN website has gone down. Things like Twitch and TikTok,
people watching other people play video games and interact on
that scene has increased. Yeah, I mean, Twitch is the
(18:21):
largest service to watch other people play video games, and
they were already that before this. But when you look
at the chart in their daily numbers, you just see
right as social distancing sets in, you just see their
numbers take off explode. And it's one of the only
forms of entertainment, at least live entertainment that's left to
(18:44):
us out there. And you know, I think TikTok is
an interesting one. I mean it's it's an app that's
only on the phone. You might think that this might
hurt them somewhat, but I think silly entertainment sort of
distraction from all of this waitiness is some thing that
people still want. And so I was struck by the
fact that TikTok was one of the apps where things
(19:06):
actually haven't changed that much for them. They just keep
getting more and more popular. That that idea of watching
somebody get hit in the back of the head with
a spun by their wife is like, you know, it's
it's something we need just as much now as we
did two months ago. Nathaniel Popper, reporter at the New
York Times, thank you very much for joining us. Thanks
again for having me. That's it for today. Join us
(19:35):
on social media at Daily Dive Pod on both Twitter
and Instagram. Leave us a comment, give us a rating,
and tell us the stories that you're interested in. Follow
us in our Heart Radio, or subscribe wherever you get
your podcast. This episode of the Daily Dive was produced
by Victor Wright and engineered by Tony Sargentina. I'm Moscar
Ramirez and this was your Daily Dive
It's Monday a I'm Oscar Ramiraz in Los Angeles, and
this is the daily dive. Everyone is looking forward to
how and when we can get back to work and
get back to normal. We still have yet to hit
the peak number of cases in the United States, but
some are hoping that testing for antibodies in the blood
(00:21):
could help get us back. If you have anybodies to
COVID nineteen, it means you already had the disease and
could be immune, at least in the short term. Rachel Becker,
reporter at cal Matters, joins us for how antibody testing
could help, but there are still many questions left to
be answered next. The virus has changed the way we internet.
(00:41):
While some things maybe obvious, people are starting to have
more video chats with friends, family, and co workers, other
aspects of the way we spend our time online can
be surprising. People are moving away from their phones and
using desktop computers. More people are consuming more news from
local and established newspapers and less on partisan sites. And
deo games have seen an increase, while sports have lost out.
(01:03):
Nathaniel Popper, reporter at the New York Times, joins us
for how we are spending our lives online during the pandemic.
It's news without the noise. Let's dive in. There are
a couple of ways these antibody tests could be used epidemiologically.
They're really valuable for tracking the spread of the virus,
(01:24):
understanding the true fatality rate, and for being able to
see where it's spread, who gets sickest, who dozens and why.
Joining us now is Rachel Becker, reporter at cal Matters.
Thanks for joining us, Rachel, thanks for inviting me. Everyone
is very curious about how and when we can all
get back to normal, When can we start going back
(01:45):
to work, when can we start loosening up on the
social distancing. And one of the things that a lot
of people are pointing to and talking about is antibody testing.
You know, it shows that you might have gotten coronavirus
already and gotten over it. They're looking to people that
have gotten over to possibly harvest some of their plasma
to help others. But the other thing too, is okay,
so you have these antibodies, maybe you're immune to it
(02:09):
for a few months, a short period of time, we
can get back into the workforce, We can get back
to normal. So a lot of people are looking forward
to something like this, but there's still a lot of
questions about it. Rachel tell us a little bit about that.
Antibodies are immune proteins that attack viruses and other pathogens,
and they form as part of the immune response to
(02:29):
a virus like stars Covey to the virus that causes
the disease known as COVID nineteen. And so the hope
is that by testing for antibodies, researchers public health workers
will be able to identify those who have already had
the virus and who have fought it off and survived.
There are a couple of ways these antibody tests could
be used epidemiologically. They're really valuable for tracking the spread
(02:53):
of the virus, understanding the true fatality rate, and for
being able to see where it spread, who gets sickest,
who dozens and why. But then there's this other conversation
that's happening that you just mentioned about using antibody tests
to try to maybe selectively lift the shelter in place
order that we have here in California, and that's cropping
(03:15):
up across the country. You know, maybe folks who have
antibodies should be sent to the front lines. That's definitely
a possibility that's been floated. But healthcare professionals, scientists that
I've spoke to urge caution there's still a lot we
don't know about the immune response to uh stars, Covey too,
to the novel coronavirus. We don't know how strong the
(03:38):
antibody response is. We don't know what level of antibodies
are considered protective. We don't know if everybody makes the
right kinds of antibodies to be protective, and we don't
know how long that protection lasts. So they're just still
so many unknowns to to start putting people's safety on
the line. Testing, testing, testing, it's all about testing. We're
(04:00):
still barely it seems like we're getting starting to gain
a handle on actually testing people for the virus. But
on the antibody testing side, there are a few tests
that are there, and I know in some areas of
starting those tests on people, but we're still a little
ways from getting this ramped up. Yeah, there have definitely
been some studies that are going on across the country.
(04:21):
CDC has one, other research groups, Violent Research Institute and
others are using antibody tests to Again, you know trace
the virus um as an academic question. Stanford though recently
launched a lab developed test on April six at Stanford
Healthcare and the idea for that test is to determine
(04:42):
which healthcare workers might be at lower risk for working
with COVID nineteen patients. And I say, you know, lower
risk because we don't know exactly how much protection antibodies
confer at this time. Going back to whether you know
you get COVID nine team you get over it, and
if you have this immunity towards it enough, anybodies to
(05:04):
help you throughout that. There have been some studies, some
preliminary findings that I think they've done these studies and
monkeys they were infected maybe a month later they were
still immune to it. Tell us a little bit about
what we know on that, And I know, we don't
know much. It's just we're trying to piece it together
as we go. Yeah, we know so little about reinfection. Still,
there have been some reports of people potentially getting reinfected
(05:28):
with the novel coronavirus, but there is some doubt that
the folks who were reported as getting reinfected had actually
cleared the virus from their systems. It may have been
more of a flare up of the virus as as
they recovered and not reinfection. But researchers have done some
studies and monkeys where they infected the monkeys and then
(05:49):
you know, watched their inner bodies go up, and then
a month later they tried to reinfect the monkeys and
the monkeys were not susceptible to reinfection. So a bunch
of infectious disease experts out an article kind of just
assessing the state of coronavirus research, and they wrote that
that was reassuring. So we'll need a lot more of
these studies, will need a long term follow up of
(06:11):
people who have recovered to really understand it. But as those, uh,
the infectious disease experts wrote, it was reassuring about short
term immunity that's different from long term immunity and stars too,
I mean, like a loose cousin of COVID nineteen. They've
done some long term follow ups on people that survived
that and they've seen stuff that suggests some of their
(06:32):
antibodies lasted for about two years or so. But one
of the worst case scenarios that everybody we want to
avoid our you know, this false sense of security from it.
These tests are so new and we don't know much
about the stars COVIE two yet. Is that you know,
there could be some false positive test results things like that,
and we don't want to get some of these types
of test results and then send people back into the
workforce and have other outbreaks. Exactly exactly, and um, it's
(06:58):
it's possible with a poor designed test that it will
pick up antibodies to other coronaviruses, you know, not just
stars or mirrors, but also the mild coronavirus. Is that
folks might get seasonal cults from UH and so a
poorly designed test it's possible that it could pick up
those antibodies and then you get that false positive, and
(07:18):
that false positive is the worst case scenario where folks
will think that they're protected and that they're not. UH.
This could you know, if if this shelter in place
orders is lifted too soon on the basis of imperfect tests,
it could allow for the spread to ramp back up,
which is really I would be a terrible thing for
(07:40):
public health and for the hospitals that are already doing
the best they can to care for and to cope
with the patients they're seeing right now. We did mention
a bit ago about how there are some places that
are starting to do this type of testing, either Stanford
or the CDC. But do we have a sense of
when these might be able to be ramped up and
more people can start getting these type of tests. It's
(08:01):
really an open question, and it's an important question. Stanford
just launched it for healthcare workers. One test has received
emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. But
given the problems we've seen with the supply chain and
with ramping up of the diagnostic tests that look for
the virus, the called the PCR tests, I think it's
(08:23):
really an open question whether anibody tests will be able
to ramp up quickly and really, especially at the scale
we would need to start saying okay, like folks can
start re entering the workforce, life can start going back
to normal. Rachel Becker, reporter at cal Matters. Thank you
very much for joining us. Thanks so much for inviting me.
(08:52):
Is that house party? I think you had some history
of being popular. It had been training at some point,
but it was really kind of limping along and over
the last few weeks again, it's seen a traffic shoot
up and it allows essentially, and as the name would suggest,
people to gather together in a video chat room somewhat
like Zoom does, but there's also games involved. It's fun.
(09:15):
Joining us now is Nathaniel Popper, reporter at the New
York Times. Thanks for joining us, Nathaniel, Thank you for
having me. I wanted to talk a little bit about
how our lives have changed because of coronavirus, all the
social distancing that we're practicing. Obviously, Americans are spending a
lot more time at home and increasingly are living their
(09:35):
lives online. And these are things that we've been doing
for a long time, but now we have this kind
of moment to look and see how it's changing slightly.
We're always looking for different ways to entertain ourselves, whether
it's our Netflix or facebooks or YouTube's. But one thing
that's changing is that we're turning away slightly from our phones.
When the trend before that was everything was mobile. Everybody
(09:57):
was working on mobile platforms, how to pop of my
videos and things for mobile. We're taking a turn back.
We have our computers at home and we're working on
those things a little bit more. That was a really
interesting finding. Here. We put together a bunch of data
that we pulled to look at how our behavior changed
really in the course of just a few weeks, and
(10:18):
you see these pretty dramatic changes in online behavior that
is obviously very unusual, but these are unusual times. And
one of the things that stuck out to us was
that these sites that were seeking out for entertainment, for
social connections, so Facebook, Netflix, YouTube, all of those services
(10:39):
have seen the traffic on their apps declining at the
same time that their websites have seen just skyrocketing traffic.
So Facebook traffic to their website has gone up twenty
basically the matter of a few days, and their app
(11:00):
used to be what everybody was checking has sort of
been limping along. And I think it's almost as if
we're sort of remembering the virtue of looking at a
big computer screen rather than squinting down at our phone
all day, right exactly. We have the luxury of using
our desktops and our laptops more. The other thing, obviously,
this is one that we know video chats. It's definitely
(11:20):
having a moment right now. People are connecting all sorts
of ways on different apps. I mean, there's obviously face time,
there's Zoom is a huge one, but there's a few
other ones that people are gravitating towards right now because
they need something more than just the video chat. They
want fun backgrounds, and they want other stuff to help
kind of spruce that part of it up. It's really
notable that it feels like just sort of connecting by
(11:44):
text is not enough in this time where we can't
see people because of social distancing. We're not allowed to
get together with our friends and family, and so the
only way we can see each other is through video,
and that has helped a bunch of services that really
were not big ones before this house Party. I think
(12:06):
it had some history of being popular. It had been
training at some point, but it was really kind of
limping along, and over the last few weeks again it's
seen a traffic shoot up. And it allows essentially and
as the name would suggest, people to gather together in
a video chat room somewhat like Zoom does, but there's
also games involved. It's fun, it's about socializing, it's about
(12:30):
being together, it's not just about doing business. And just
specifically some friends posting up how they were on the
house party thing and I had to go look into
because I hadn't heard about it before. But yeah, that's
the exact same thing they we're doing, playing the games,
trying to have some fun other ways than just the
traditional video chat. This is more than FaceTime, and so
I think yes, so much of the changing patterns is
(12:52):
in that direction of finding ways to connect more deeply
when we're feeling cut off from each other. The other
sort of interesting trend in that direction is with our
neighbors and locally because we're thinking so much more about
the local businesses and our local community. Is coronavirus here
(13:12):
as it made it into the local hospital, what are
the numbers around me? And so on that front, you
have social media network next Door, which has been popular,
but it's still a relatively small player in the social
media world. But again it has just taken off over
the last few weeks. Obviously a lot of people are
working from home, students that have had their schools closed,
(13:34):
which is basically all of them, they're taking classes from home.
So on that front, Zoom has definitely having a moment
with a lot of students. Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams are Company,
I heart media. We're using Microsoft teams to connect and
do a virtual meetings and all that. So these are
also having a moment. But the thing that comes with
that is privacy concerns. I know Zoom specifically had a
(13:56):
lot of privacy concerns with zoom bombing, and a couple
of others as well. It feels like Zoom more than
any other company has benefited from this. I think there's
no company that's emerged from this more strongly. You've seen
their stock overtake Uber in terms of the size of
the company in the market capitalization. But along with that,
(14:17):
as so often I think happens in the tech world
when something takes off, as you realize that they're not
actually ready for prime time yet. And there have just
been this litany of security concerns that have come up,
people being able to log in, snoop on other people's traffic.
Of course, this issue of zoom bombing, where people basically intrude,
often in offensive ways, into other people's Zoom conferences. And
(14:41):
I think it's this inevitable tale of Silicon Valley where
it's not quite ready for the success that it has.
And that's why Zoom was so interesting to me on
how it took off, especially with schools and online classrooms.
Because of that, it was still fairly new and as
exactly as you said, when it's new and hot and
everybody wants to use it all the other a little
crack starts showing after that. It was very surprising to
(15:03):
me that Zoom took off so much because of that,
especially for online classes when you want something to be
a little more stable for the students, and obviously all
the privacy concerns there. It sort of is a reminder
of just how quickly behavior has changed. Obviously, video chat
was something that existed before, but it was not something
that all that many people were relying on before. It
was not something people were thinking about so much before. Obviously,
(15:26):
you know, I think in the business world, slack was
the big sort of trend, the big growth pattern, because
you're chatting with people in between seeing them. Now you
can't see them, and so you need a way to
do that, and Zoom has obviously been the place to go.
But it's going to be interesting to see as time
goes on how much people move back towards things like
Microsoft Teams, maybe hangouts from other places that have a
(15:49):
bit more of a track record especially with security. Now,
this next angle of how coronavirus has changed the way
we Internet, I think it's a good one. So people
have gone to their local newspaper sites and their local
TV stations. They've turned to them more for news updates.
They obviously want to know what's going on in their
communities a lot, and partisan sites those have maybe not
(16:13):
had huge decreases but at least stagnated at least with traffic,
and people are turning to a lot more large media
organizations sites that they trust, especially things like New York
Times and the Washington Post. You know when the President
says a lot of things like oh, fake news and whatnot,
and you know it has its place when things start
getting heavily politicized. But it's good to see that people
are turning to these local sites more now. There's definitely
(16:36):
a sense of the last few years have been all
about skepticism towards the media. Obviously, partisan news sites have
fed that skepticism of corporate media. But you come to
a time where you just want the facts, and I
think people are turning back to those traditional sources and saying,
(16:56):
if I just want the facts, this is still the
place I'm going to go. I don't necessarily want the opinions.
I want to know what the numbers are in my community,
what restaurants are shut down. I want to know how
much things are spreading. And so you're seeing more mainstream
sites which have in many ways struggled in recent years.
(17:17):
Those have been the places where people have been going.
And unfortunately this is not necessarily meant a great sort
of business boom for these companies because a lot of
these companies make most of their money from advertisers, and
so even if you have a lot of viewers, if
advertisers are sort of dropping out, which is what's happening
(17:37):
now with the economy, the sites are continuing to struggle.
Local newspapers are continuing to struggle economically even as their readership,
you know, is skyrocketing. Two sites that some big increases
c NBC, the Business news website has seen a huge
increase in the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Obviously,
people are pointing to them a lot hard numbers and
(17:59):
guidance on social distancing it and whatnot. So they've seen
big numbers. And the last section we want to talk
about video games. Obviously, sports have dropped off a huge bit.
Uh ESPN website has gone down. Things like Twitch and TikTok,
people watching other people play video games and interact on
that scene has increased. Yeah, I mean, Twitch is the
(18:21):
largest service to watch other people play video games, and
they were already that before this. But when you look
at the chart in their daily numbers, you just see
right as social distancing sets in, you just see their
numbers take off explode. And it's one of the only
forms of entertainment, at least live entertainment that's left to
(18:44):
us out there. And you know, I think TikTok is
an interesting one. I mean it's it's an app that's
only on the phone. You might think that this might
hurt them somewhat, but I think silly entertainment sort of
distraction from all of this waitiness is some thing that
people still want. And so I was struck by the
fact that TikTok was one of the apps where things
(19:06):
actually haven't changed that much for them. They just keep
getting more and more popular. That that idea of watching
somebody get hit in the back of the head with
a spun by their wife is like, you know, it's
it's something we need just as much now as we
did two months ago. Nathaniel Popper, reporter at the New
York Times, thank you very much for joining us. Thanks
again for having me. That's it for today. Join us
(19:35):
on social media at Daily Dive Pod on both Twitter
and Instagram. Leave us a comment, give us a rating,
and tell us the stories that you're interested in. Follow
us in our Heart Radio, or subscribe wherever you get
your podcast. This episode of the Daily Dive was produced
by Victor Wright and engineered by Tony Sargentina. I'm Moscar
Ramirez and this was your Daily Dive
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