5 Years Later: America Looks Back at the Impact of COVID-19, P8
- Shidonna Raven
- Mar 31
- 2 min read
AND CLAUDIA DEANE
February 12, 2025
Source: PEW Research
Photo / Image Source: Unsplash,
General technology use
The internet was critical to Americans during the pandemic, with 90% saying it was important to their life at the time (as of April 2021) – including 58% who said it was essential.
Looking back on the pandemic today, about half of U.S. adults say it changed the way they now use technology, with younger people especially inclined to say this.
The pandemic also intersected with long-standing digital divides, and in many ways brought them into the spotlight. For example, we’ve long seen differences by income in who has access to technology. And during the pandemic, lower-income teens were more likely to report tech-related challenges with schoolwork, such as needing to complete homework on a cellphone or over public Wi-Fi.
Among Americans who say COVID-19 changed the way they use technology, those with lower incomes are less likely to say these changes have made their lives easier (in October 2024). Still, the largest shares regardless of income say these changes have made their lives both easier and harder.
Americans’ expectations for the nation’s response to a future health emergency appear somewhat positive compared with the critiques and divisiveness they associate with the coronavirus response.
More than twice as many say the U.S. would do better with a future health emergency (40%) than say we would do worse (16%), though many Americans (43%) say we would do about the same as we did with how the country handled the COVID-19 pandemic.
About six-in-ten (61%) think the public health system would do at least a somewhat good job dealing with a future health emergency; an even larger share (69%) think people in their own community would do a good job.
A larger share of Democrats (73%) than Republicans (50%) think the public health system in the U.S. would do a good job dealing with a future health emergency. But comparable majorities of both Democrats (72%) and Republicans (68%) express confidence in their own communities to respond well.
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