COVID-19 RESPONSE
Lunchtime is the New Dinnertime During COVID-19
Americans are altering screen time rules with everyone home during COVID-19. There has been a spike in usage since the start of the pandemic with a 57 percent increase in people logging on to xFi daily – our digital dashboard to help customers manage their home WiFi network – and a 27 percent increase in users of parental controls features. The most popular actions on xFi are:
The new lunch hour at home is big for family time. There has been a big increase in parents pausing their WiFi network during lunchtime (11am-2pm) compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, since March 9 there has been a 213 percent increase in WiFi pause during lunchtime. With more families staying home during the day, pausing the WiFi can be a way to extend rules that are typically applied to dinnertime to lunchtime. It may also be used to enforce study time for those who are being homeschooled during the day and not using online materials.
Parents are increasing the amount of time their kids are online via the xFi active time alerts feature by 1 additional hour per day. The median active time alert set on weekdays has gone up from 3 hours to 4 hours a day during the COVID pandemic. That additional hour allots for more time to do schoolwork, connect with classmates, and entertainment, as parents are also working from home.
Pausing WiFi is the most popular feature on xFi. It is a great way to get family members to put down their devices and focus on each other. There has been a 75 percent increase in the number of times parents are hitting pause on their WiFi network using xFi since the COVID pandemic. With everyone at home at all hours, the pause button has been a great feature to help parents enforce screen time rules throughout the day.
Parents have been more aware of age appropriate content guidelines as screen time rules get a little looser. xFi has a setting that filters web content while browsing and searching on devices, reducing the risk of accessing websites that may not be age appropriate. There has been a 43 percent increase in parents activating this setting on xFi for their kids.
We’re happy to see the xFi parental control features have come in handy while everyone shelters in place. We’ll keep you posted on how usage evolves over these next few weeks.