Museum Visiting Patterns and Social Media Usage during the Covid-19 Pandemic

How do people visit museums and inspire themselves? Existing papers focus almost entirely on the digital exhibition or marketing perspective, while other researchers have studied social media with a specific focus on how to increase the number of followers. Unlike these papers, this work puts emphasis on the digital-familiar generation, whose social media usage is among the top across age groups. With Covid-19 widespread, online information influences offline behaviors, possibly indicating the role of social media as an alternative to museum visits.

To examine this idea, we provide survey evidence that consists of four parts-demographic, social media usage, museum visiting during Covid-19, and others. In short, Covid-19 has influenced museum visiting patterns but did not have much impact on the followings of museums’ social media accounts. Specifically for students whose majors are art-related, they find it necessary to visit the museum in-person, suggesting that the role of social media as an alternative to museum visits is insufficient.