MIT IDE Special Report: COVID-19 and The Impact On Our Digital Economy

OUR WORLD ACCELERATED
COVID-19 AND THE IMPACT ON OUR DIGITAL ECONOMY

From pizza parlors to platform
giants, frontline workers to CEOs,
the COVID-19 pandemic struck
the economy a devastating blow..
MIT IDE COVID-19
Rapid Response Hub
Research Areas
Impact of
government
interventions and
social distancing on
the pandemic
In the U.S., when the economy ground to a halt last
spring, the digital economy boomed while the brick
and mortar economy suffered tremendously. Nearly
all businesses not only had to pivot, but make critical,
unprecedented decisions. In the midst of the crisis,
researchers at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy
(IDE) went to work analyzing data and mapping trends
to guide business leaders and policymakers alike—with
facts. What would be the impact of massive work-fromhome
employment? How can supply chains be improved?
Is the shift to telehealth now entrenched? And what role
do social media platforms play in how the world has
responded to vaccination and the overall crisis?
Over the last year, our world-renowned research
team worked tirelessly to provide timely, accurate,
and data-informed analysis of the pandemic and
its effects. Our researchers have analyzed the vast
impact of COVID-19 on society, technology, and the
global economy to provide actionable solutions for
policymakers, business leaders, and citizens. We
collaborated with the World Health Organization,
Facebook, Safegraph, Praekelt, and Graphika Inc.
to analyze millions of data points to help stop the
spread of the coronavirus and to advise local and
global leaders on critical next steps. What follows
are highlights of our year-long efforts.
Economic fallout
and business
implications of
COVID-19, and
post-pandemic
planning
Fighting coronavirus
misinformation and
bias, and the role of
social media
In this report
Digital technology
and COVID-19
3
Spotlight:
Dean Eckles
4
Spotlight:
Sinan Aral
6
Spotlight:
David Rand
8
Key
takeaways
Vaccine
acceptance

DEAN
ECKLES
@deaneckles
Dean Eckles is the Mitsubishi Career
Development Professor and an associate
professor of marketing at MIT Sloan.
He heads the Social Networks and
Digital Experimentation Research Group
at the MIT IDE. His research primarily
focuses on how technology and social
interaction impact people’s response to
the COVID-19 pandemic.
FULL BIO
COVID-19 BELIEFS, BEHAVIORS & NORMS SURVEY
Dean Eckles, Sinan Aral, Alex Moehring, Avinash Collis, Kiran Garimella, and
M. Amin Rahimian
Vaccine acceptance
In collaboration with Facebook and Johns Hopkins University, and with
input from experts at the World Health Organization and the Global
Outbreak Alert and Response Network, the team fielded the world’s
largest survey on COVID-19 beliefs, behaviors, and perceptions. The
team found that providing accurate information about how others in
their country practice and accept vaccination, mask wearing, or social
distancing positively influenced their beliefs and intentions to accept
a vaccine. Providing this type of information can partially correct
individuals’ underestimation of how many others in their network,
community, and/or country will accept a vaccine.
KEY FINDINGS
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34% of adults surveyed felt
COVID-19 risk was very
dangerous to their community
65% of adults surveyed said
they would choose to get
vaccinated if a vaccine for
COVID-19 became available
55% of those surveyed felt it
was extremely important to
take preventative actions
against the spread of COVID-19
31.5% of survey respondents
felt that people in their
community think it is extremely
important to take actions to
prevent the spread of COVID-19
The Cost of Uncoordinated Responses
to COVID-19
Interdependence and the Cost of
Uncoordinated Responses to COVID-19
THE WORLD’S LARGEST COVID-19 SURVEY TOUCHED 23 COUNTRIES
A sample of Facebook users were invited to respond to the survey from
the United States, India, United Kingdom, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil,
Colombia, Italy, France, Germany, Romania, Poland, Pakistan, Turkey,
Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines,
Egypt, and Nigeria.
SURFACING NORMS IN HEALTH COMMUNICATIONS
INCREASES VACCINE ACCEPTANCE
Dean Eckles, Sinan Aral, Alex Moehring, Avinash Collis, Kiran
Garimella, and M. Amin Rahimian
Vaccine acceptance
What affects people’s choice to accept or seek out safe
and effective COVID-19 vaccines? Eckles and his research
team explore vaccine acceptance and specifically how
social influence and the right public health messaging
can influence people’s behavior regardless of their
baseline beliefs.
Surfacing norms to increase vaccine acceptance
Op-ed with Sinan Aral: Why public health messaging
should emphasize vaccine acceptance, not hesitancy
SNAPSHOT
WAVES
‘Waves’ countries were surveyed continuously in two-week periods.
‘Snapshot’ countries were surveyed once from July 1-August 3, 2020.
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IDE RELEASES FIRST COMPREHENSIVE
EVALUATION OF U.S. COVID-19
REOPENING POLICIES
Sinan Aral and Michael Zhao
Impact of government interventions and
social distancing on the pandemic
Aral’s 2020 research showed that a local
government’s social distancing policies
can impact the health outcomes of other
communities, regardless of geographical
proximity. Peoples’ behaviors are influenced
by their local communities and their
social connectivity, and their perceptions
of the effectiveness of local policies can
be substantially altered by their social
connections. The data shows that individuals’
adherence to social distancing is impacted
by the policies of the regions where their
social network connections reside.
SINAN
ARAL
@sinanaral
Sinan Aral is the David Austin Professor of
Management at MIT Sloan and the director
of the MIT IDE. He is a global thought leader
on social media, social networks, and the
impact they have on the digital economy.
Aral’s research focuses heavily on the
efficacy of government policies in response
to COVID-19 and the impact that social
media has had on the response. He also
offers data-driven predictions of what lies
ahead in a post-pandemic world.
FULL BIO
GOING REMOTE Previously a nice “option” for digital economy workers to consider working from home,
the pandemic forced a paradigm shift that will likely make remote work the norm rather than the extreme.
At the IDE, we are measuring it all.
WHAT HAPPENS TO INDUSTRY AND JOBS
AFTER COVID-19?
Featuring Sinan Aral
Economic fallout and business implications of
COVID-19 and post-pandemic planning
MIT Sloan’s Ideas Made to Matter spoke with
Sinan Aral and four other experts at the MIT IDE to
get their perspectives on how digital technology
will impact the future of work in a post-pandemic
world. Social media enabled researchers like Aral
to collect information from people around the world
that would help inform global policy and response
to the COVID-19 pandemic.
What Happens to Industry and Jobs After COVID-19?
THE ECONOMIC FALLOUT FROM
COVID-19
Sinan Aral
Economic fallout and business implications of
COVID-19 and post-pandemic planning
MIT IDE Director Sinan Aral offers a five-point plan
of action to stave off a global meltdown.
At the start of the pandemic, Aral offered advice
to business leaders and policymakers in an effort
to preclude a cataclysmic economic disaster. One
year later, we reflect: How much of Aral’s advice
was heeded? How is the economy faring?
Economic Fallout from COVID-19
KEY FINDINGS
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Counties under statewide shelter-inplace
orders received 8%-14% less
cross-state traffic compared to prepandemic
levels.
As expected, re-openings boosted
travel to destination counties—and
their bars, restaurants, and beaches—
by 12%-13%.
When a location reopened and
another was still locked down, people
from lockdown counties flooded to
the reopened destination—by 11%-12%
from nearby counties, and 24% from
distant counties.
If the origin location reopened but
the destination was still closed, travel
to both nearby and distant closed
counties was curbed by 9%-17% and
21%-27% respectively.
Study Reveals True Reasons for COVID-19
Flare-ups
The Interdependent Impacts of Regional
COVID-19 Reopenings in the United States
4

SINAN
IN THE
MEDIA
Social media giants like Facebook
have gone ‘out of their way’ to make
more information available
Sinan Aral joined Yahoo! Finance’s On
The Move panel to highlight how social
media is handling information amid the
coronavirus pandemic.
Study: There will be a “devastating cost
of failure” if economic re-openings are
not coordinated
Read coverage of this study in the
TechRepublic
Read Sinan’s op-ed on this topic in
The Hill
Watch Sinan’s interview with WGBH
on this topic
Watch Sinan’s interview with
MSNBC’s Meet the Press on this topic
THE COST OF UNCOORDINATED RESPONSES TO COVID-19
Dean Eckles, Sinan Aral, David Holtza, Michael Zhao, Seth G. Benzell, Cathy Y.
Caoa, M. Amin Rahimiana, Jeremy Yanga, Jennifer Allena, Avinash Collisa, Alex
Moehringa, Tara Sowrirajanc, Dipayan Ghosha, Yunhao Zhanga, Paramveer S.
Dhillone, and Christos Nicolaides
Impact of government interventions and social distancing on
the pandemic
Eckles and his research team produced a comprehensive
study of the cost of uncoordinated U.S. responses to COVID-19, and
found that ad hoc local shutdowns and re-openings underscored an
urgent need for intervention on a national level. Findings show that
people can be significantly influenced by the policies and behaviors
of those in other, sometimes distant, regions. The research shows
that countries and states that reopen without national coordination
face significant difficulty controlling the resurgent spread of the
coronavirus. When people move across borders with relative ease,
there is a substantial, and often deadly, impact.
The Cost of Uncoordinated Responses to COVID-19
Interdependence and the Cost of Uncoordinated
Responses to COVID-19
DATA ANALYTICS HOLDS THE KEY TO RE-OPENING THE U.S.
Seth Benzell, Avinash Collis, and Christos Nicolaides
Impact of government interventions and social distancing on
the pandemic
As a direct response to the policies that were enacted in certain U.S.
states, researchers at the IDE conducted a study that would
aid policymakers in the absence of empirical data. The researchers
studied data—based on millions of smartphone geolocation data
points and government statistics—across all 50 states to determine
which areas and types of businesses would be the highest risk to
reopen, and assess the priority of reopening certain businesses or
practices over others.
The hope was that policymakers would use the data to make better
informed decisions. According to IDE researchers, some U.S. states
enacted policies that directly contradicted the research findings.
“What is social media’s impact
on society—and how do we
regulate it, use it, design it, and
harness it to create positive
outcomes rather than peril?
COVID-19 put this question
front and center because
everyone was forced into
remote socialization.”
Sinan Aral, What Happens to Industry and Jobs
After COVID-19?
Data Analytics Holds the Key to Re-opening the U.S.
5

FIGHTING COVID-19
MISINFORMATION ON SOCIAL
MEDIA: EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE
FOR A SCALABLE ACCURACY NUDGE
INTERVENTION
David Rand, Gordon Pennycook, Jonathon
McPhetres, and Yunhao Zhang
Fighting coronavirus misinformation and
bias and the role of social media
The COVID-19 pandemic has bred a multitude
of falsehoods that are being spread across
every social platform around the globe.
IDE researchers investigated the science
behind the spread of misinformation, and
why people are prone to believing and
spreading false news. Across two studies
with more than 1,600 participants, the
researchers found that people share false
claims about COVID-19 in part because they
simply fail to think sufficiently about whether
or not content is accurate when deciding
what to share.
VACCINE MISINFORMATION Politics, geography, and race all expose the barriers we must overcome
to reach herd immunity through COVID-19 vaccination.
Fighting COVID-19 Misinformation on
Social Media
DAVID
RAND
@DG_Rand
David Rand is the Erwin H. Schell Professor
and an associate professor of Management
Science and Brain and Cognitive Sciences
at MIT Sloan, and leads the Misinformation
and Fake News Research Group at the MIT
IDE. Rand’s research focuses on the spread
of misinformation about the COVID-19
pandemic, and the psychology behind
the perceptions and biases that fuel
society’s response.
FULL BIO
BELIEFS ABOUT COVID-19 IN CANADA,
THE U.K., AND THE U.S.A.: A NOVEL TEST
OF POLITICAL POLARIZATION AND
MOTIVATED REASONING
David Rand, Gordon Pennycook, Jonathon McPhetres,
and Bence Bago
Fighting coronavirus misinformation and
bias and the role of social media
In a two-wave study completed early and later
in the pandemic, Rand and his team found that
political conservatism in the U.S. contributed
to a greater polarization around beliefs about
COVID-19 than in the U.K. and Canada.
COVID-19 skepticism in the U.S. was strongly
correlated with distrust in liberal-leaning
mainstream news outlets and trust in
conservative-leaning news outlets, suggesting
that polarization may be driven by differences
in information environments.
Beliefs about COVID-19 in Canada, the
U.K., and the U.S.A.
HOW IS RACE ASSOCIATED WITH
PERCEPTIONS OF FUTURE COVID-19
VACCINES?
David Rand and Charles Senteio
Vaccine acceptance
There is no denying that COVID is a global
health and economic crisis, but communities
of color continue to experience higher
infection and mortality rates and financial
strain. Coupled with the preexisting issue
of persistent mistrust of the healthcare
system, this has created a widespread issue
with vaccine acceptance among minority
populations. Rand and his fellow researcher
at COVID-19 and Race, Charles Senteio are
actively studying this issue to offer datadriven
recommendations and analysis.
COVID-19 and Race
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
TRUE
FALSE
JUST A NUDGE HELPS
Percentage of “yes” responses by headline
veracity (true vs false) and condition (accuracy
= “To the best of your knowledge, is the claim
in the above headline accurate?”; sharing =
“Would you consider sharing this story online
(for example, through Facebook or Twitter)?”).
Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals.
6

“COVID-19
presents
a unique
opportunity
to test
psychological
theories
about political
polarization
and science
beliefs in the
context of
a novel test
case.”
Beliefs about COVID-19 in Canada,
the U.K., and the U.S.A.: A novel test
of political polarization and motivated
reasoning by David Rand et al.
DON’T GET IT OR DON’T SPREAD IT?
COMPARING SELF-INTERESTED
VERSUS PRO SOCIALLY FRAMED
COVID-19 PREVENTION
MESSAGING
David Rand, Jillian Jordan, and Erez Yoeli
Impact of government interventions and
social distancing on the pandemic
Should public health messaging focus on
the benefits of prevention to individuals,
society, or both? How can we motivate
preventative actions? Rand and his team
of researchers found strong evidence
for the power of prosocial framing.
The results of their study suggest that
emphasizing the public benefits of
prevention efforts may be an effective
pandemic response strategy.
Don’t Get It or Don’t Spread It?
TURKING IN THE TIME OF COVID
David Rand and Antonio Arechar
Economic fallout and business implications
of COVID-19 and post-pandemic planning
Amazon Mechanical Turk, or MTurk, is a crowdsourcing website
for businesses to hire remotely located “crowdworkers” to
perform discrete on-demand tasks that computers are currently
unable to do. Rand and his research team studied the effects that
government shutdowns and strict social distancing protocols had
on the job market, and specifically, how the pandemic is affecting
online labor markets like MTurk. These online labor markets play
a significant role in social science research, and they explore
whether the pandemic has had any effect on the subject pool
available on crowdsourcing marketplaces.
PERSONAL PUBLIC + PRIVATE PUBLIC GOOD
MESSAGING MATTERS After subjects finished reading the text in the experiment, they were
asked to carefully read a flier about COVID-19. This flier varied across treatments, again by
emphasizing threat to the subject, their community, or both.
ENCOURAGING THE RESUMPTION OF ECONOMIC
ACTIVITY AFTER COVID-19: EVIDENCE FROM A
LARGE SCALE FIELD EXPERIMENT IN CHINA
David Rand, Juan Palacios,Yichun Fan, Erez Yoeli, Jianghao Wang,
Yuchen Chai, Weizeng Sun, and Siqi Zheng
Economic fallout and business implications
of COVID-19 and post-pandemic planning
As the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic diminishes,
governments find themselves facing a new challenge:
motivating citizens to resume economic activity. Rand and
his team investigate this issue using a field experiment in
the city of Zhengzhou, China, immediately following the end
of the city’s COVID-19 lockdown.
Turking in the Time of COVID
Encouraging the resumption of economic activity after
COVID-19
7

KEY
TAKEAWAYS
OUR WORK
CONTINUES
The impact of
government
interventions
and social
distancing on
the pandemic is
critical.
The lack of a coordinated,
national government response
to the pandemic had varying
effects on the population’s
response to social distancing
measures. The IDE research
team analyzed the data and
explored the varying degrees
of effectiveness in controlling
the spread of the virus.
Post-pandemic
planning is
key to the
economic fallout
and business
implications of
COVID-19.
The pandemic will have
lasting effects on the world’s
economy. IDE researchers
explore everything from
reopening strategies and
the resumption of economic
activity, to industry trends
and jobs in our new reality.
Social media
has a huge role
in creating
and fighting
coronavirus
misinformation
and bias.
IDE researchers investigate
the science behind the
spread of misinformation,
the influence social media
has on people’s beliefs
about the pandemic, and
why people are prone to
believing and spreading
false news.
Digital
technology
helped track
COVID-19 and
transformed
the nature of
work.
The pandemic has spurred
rapid developments in
the technology space.
Researchers at the IDE
explore the role that digital
technology—such as AI and
remote access—has played in
healthcare and business, and
how it’s helped governments
track pandemic patterns.
Vaccine
acceptance
is still
unfolding
but there are
remedies for
improvement.
The IDE is on the cutting
edge of vaccine acceptance
research. Researchers
have conducted the
world’s largest survey on
vaccine acceptance and
are actively studying the
effects of messaging and
misinformation on peoples’
beliefs and biases regarding
the COVID-19 vaccine.
Digital technology has been a balm to
the wounds of the pandemic. From data
analytics to newly created platforms, IDE
researchers are contributing solutions
with long-lasting impact to the enormous
problems caused by COVID-19.
Our researchers are global thought
leaders at the forefront of the
conversations surrounding COVID-19.
Their groundbreaking and ongoing work
continues to aid policymakers in creating
actionable solutions to this health and
economic crisis.
The focus of our research continues to
evolve at the same rapid pace of the
pandemic. To stay abreast of the important
work we’re doing on this timely topic, visit
our COVID-19 Rapid Response Hub for
additional resources and further reading.
IDE COVID-19 RAPID RESPONSE HUB
Learn about future events, research projects, book releases, and other noteworthy happenings at the IDE.
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