The Coronavirus crisis is altering everyday life a great deal in 2020, but digital entertainment trends are still having a big impact on how we live our lives as well.
For example, it is a few years now since ‘Netflix and chill‘ became a buzz phrase that launched the streaming platform into the stratosphere.
Netflix had nearly 150 million subscribers in 2019 and the company is a great example of how a disrupter in the industry can have a major impact on people’s lives.
Here are some of the other major digital entertainment trends that keep altering our lives.
PC ownership is dropping
As mobile devices become more important to people, PC ownership continues to drop.
A recent eMarketer Global Media Intelligence Report revealed the primary digital device in most countries is now the smartphone.
Developing markets is where PC ownership is falling at the fastest rate. In nations including Brazil, China, India and Egypt tablets, laptops and PCs are all becoming less popular.
The same trend is happening, to a lesser extent, in places including the United States, as well as France, Russia, and Sweden. While laptops and desktop computers are still quite popular with older, affluent internet users, this digital entertainment trend is going in only one direction.
Research carried out by eMarketer has also found that 45 per cent of internet users in the US said they were spending more time using their smartphone during the pandemic.
Digital ad spending worldwide is expected to increase by around 2.5 percent over the course of 2020, hitting $332.84 billion, with much of this spending being focused on smartphones.
Online casinos growing in popularity
With so many bricks and mortar casinos in the US having to close due to lockdown conditions this year, it does not come as a surprise to see online casinos are enjoying a boom time.
Although under 100 of the casinos in America are still shut according to a tracker maintained by the American Gaming Association, playing online might now be much more attractive.
Not everyone lives close enough to a casino to be able to visit it, while online casinos are open 24 hours a day and seven days a week. Additionally, they have better bonuses and promotions on offer for those casino customers who are looking to land a bargain.
While social casinos were on the rise for a while, the thrill of being able to cash out real money is what makes the online gambling industry thrive
There is even the possibility to play for free at a lot of casinos these days. This gives people the chance to test out new casino sites and slot games they have not experienced before.
The digital entertainment trend and transformation towards online casinos is one that most experts expect to continue for some time to come and it would not be a surprise if many bricks and mortar casinos went out of business.
More information being consumed online
With the pandemic forcing people to spend more time at home – either by choice or because they are in a lockdown – they have been consuming more information online than ever before.
Devices such as the Amazon Echo have normalized people bringing voice recognition into their daily lives and this digital entertainment trend has been one of the biggest of recent years.
It’s more than a trend for the digital entertainment industry. It’s a transformation
It is only a few years ago that Spike Jonze’s critically acclaimed film Her played on the growing perceptions of being reliant on a mobile device, but that is the reality for many people nowadays.
Most people now probably listen to music on either their iPhone or iPad rather than a traditional sound system, while the health and wellbeing industry has embraced the internet as well.
The Fitbit sold about 16 million units over the course of 2019 and that number will be many times higher once imitation devices that are similar to the activity tracker have been included.
Even though its advert was mocked by the public, Peloton is another fitness brand that has proven to be extremely popular in recent years.
Predicting the future is tricky but there are no doubts at all that digital entertainment trends such as these are going to keep altering everyday life in the years to come.