Coronavirus: The best and worst times to be on the NBN

The coronavirus pandemic is changing the way Australians use the internet. We are working into the night, chatting with colleagues later, and staying online to entertain ourselves.

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The way Australians use the internet is changing dramatically during the coronavirus pandemic, with downloads up, uploads rising, peak times spread out, gaming platforms busy, and messages between colleagues arriving at all hours of the day, according to new statistics.

The changes to our lifestyles have even affected how we use our mobile phones and what we look at online, with education, exercise and religious searches growing, and travel, soccer, and charity going down.

Around the globe, children of all ages are spending more time at home with parents and carers. Picture: Getty Images

But remote working experts warn that employees and managers alike should resist the temptation to stay connected around the clock or work longer during the COVID-19 pandemic as they risked burning out within weeks.

Statistics from broadband, phone, web and messaging services alike show some of the ways our lifestyles have changed since the coronavirus outbreak in early March, with tech use up across the board and around the clock.

Messaging service Slack, for example, revealed increases of up to 28 per cent in messages sent in some US cities during the pandemic, with users spending as much as 26 per cent more time using the service to connect to colleagues.

But the figures also showed more messages being sent well outside work hours. New York, for example, which has become the US virus epicentre, has seen a rise in messages traded up to 10pm.

Workers are increasingly staying in front of a computer for longer hours during the pandemic.

NBN Co figures also showed downloads on its broadband network had increased by 49 per cent since the start of March during business hours, while uploads had more than doubled by April 12.

NBN Co residential chief customer officer Brad Whitcomb said internet uploads had been fuelled by a spike in videoconferencing that forced the company to increase capacity to “address demand”.

“Uploads over the NBN have significantly increased as more Australians use real-time communication applications such as video conferencing to learn and to connect with friends and family,” he said, “and as the use of online business applications that require strong upload performance continues to grow.”

Internet traffic was also higher between 8pm and midnight, the company reported, with a spike of 25 per cent.

Institute of Management WA chief executive Gary Martin said workers were increasingly staying in front of a computer for longer hours during the pandemic, resisting breaks to avoid missing messages or phone calls, and pushing themselves to tackle more projects. Some Australians were pushing themselves harder due to “widespread job insecurity”, he said, but others were being forced to work longer hours by managers who did not trust workers they could not see and who had not been trained to manage people from afar.

“There are horror stories out there where people are being required to work under a webcam the whole time,” he said.

“They will eventually realise that you can’t have people working 12-hour days but by that time we will have a bunch of people burnt out.”

Originally published as Coronavirus: The best and worst times to be on the NBN