Online activities of students living in a metropolis under the Pandemic

Our study aims to analyze online activities of student community in a metropolis during the COVID-19 pandemic. We focused our research attention on frequency and purposes of Internet visits by students while learning remotely. The paper provides findings obtained through two waves of the sociological survey carried out in Moscow in 2019 and 2020. Using a questionnaire method we surveyed students of Moscow universities in March 2019 (N=1240 respondents) and in April 2020 (N=410). We fixed growth in the use of desktop computers by student users. We found that the number of Internet visits for communication purposes remained almost the same as it had been before the pandemic. Remarkably, the number of work related requests increased significantly, while the growth in searches for learning resources was not as impressive as we had expected in view of the overall shift to distance learning. Thus, we concluded that the e-learning shift did not cause significant transformations of the higher education system. © 2020 Copyright for this paper by its authors