The Covid-19 pandemic gives us a chance to re-evaluate the worth of two major initiatives of the Narendra Modi government: demonetization and digitization. And to the extent demonetization forced us to think digital, you cannot deny it as one factor in the rise of the digital economy.

But digitalisation is not just about payments and financial transactions. Consider what all will happen as the current lockdown persists across the country. Courts are beginning to use video-conferencing to conduct hearings. It is ironic that something that should have been done years ago to hasten hearings is now being done to prevent infections.

But more than any other, it is the healthcare sector that is going to change dramatically over the next few years, again thanks to digitization and technology. Remote patient examinations, analysis of symptoms with the help of databases and algorithms, and even the basic task of taking down a new patient’s medical history can all be done remotely through a digital app or interface.

To conclude we can say that to overcome the situation of covid-19 mobile phones are playing an important role. The medium of using the internet has also changed from big bulky desktops to sleek and compact smartphones. It has made the world so much smaller. Service industries have boomed up. App-based start-ups have started receiving funding in billions of dollars in each round. The exponential growth of mobile-based unicorns seems unrealistic. Making an effort to convert India into Digital India.

“If we just stop to think where we would have been in this pandemic but for digital technology, we would recognize the importance of going digital.”

Time spent by Indians on smartphones increased by 24% to 4.3 hours per day in March driven

primarily by the lockdown, according to data from analytics firm App Annie of android phones.

This is a significant spike as compared to 3.5 hours a day on average in 2019 as consumers spent increasing time on mobile games like PUBG, social networks like TikTok and Facebook besides using video-chatting applications like Zoom for both interacting with friends and family besides office work and attending school.

India also saw the biggest jump in video consumption of 40% to over 2.9 billion hours during the

week starting March 22 as compared to the last week of December 2019, when the number stood at 2.1 billion hours a week.

Another highlight from the report was that Indians are also increasingly spending on healthcare

and meditation applications during the lock. While downloads of these applications increased by

30% to 3.9 million during the week starting March 22 spending jumped 60% to $400,000 or

about Rs 3 crore during the week.

Some of the other applications which became favourites in India during lockdown was Google

Classroom in the education technology space and Ludo King in the gaming segment.

Mobile phones can be connected to the internet at any time and at any place which is advantageous to browse anything it relates to. Online education is at its boom in India which can be conducted in two ways — either through recorded classes or via live online classes conducted as webinars.

Soon as the Covid-19 crisis broke out in India, the larger universities like Delhi University (DU)

and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) announced the suspension of classes until March 31.

While others waited to see what would happen next, they started exploring online classes.

COVID-19 vaccine is still far from fruition.

Mobile is a reflection of our lives — what is important to us in that moment, what is helping us get through the day, and what is connecting us to other people and the world at large.

Due to Covid-19, Stay-at-home orders have introduced many people to the world of applications in their Mobile phones that enable them to order takeout food or groceries online, and when they do go to the store, more people are choosing to pay with their phones instead of touching cash or credit cards. Mobile can be used in diverse areas. From zoom meetings to WhatsApp video calls, from education to information, from games to Google classroom, from online webinars to international conferences, from utilizing time to exhausting space. Anything and Everything in your hands now. Covid-19 without mobile couldn’t work. Mobile phones can be connected to the internet at any time and at any place which is advantageous to students to browse anything through it related to their studies.

With Android/IOS devices, education now goes beyond the four walls of a classroom. And with educational mobile apps, information can now reach a wider audience. With this simple analysis, it is safe to say that the app developers developing these mobile apps in the field of education, business, entertainment, payments, etc. should be appreciated.

“If we just stop to think where we would have been in this pandemic but for digital technology, we would recognize the importance of going digital.”