Society on the web. Overview of trends in the use and development of social media and the Internet during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic forced numerous changes in many areas of human life. Society faced the challenge of adapting to the new reality. Due to the restrictions, people stayed at home and many aspects of their everyday lives moved to the Internet. Direct communication was largely replaced by remote communication, the use of digital tools increased, and social media developed and become the main ways of communication between families, members of the academic community, work colleagues, and brands with their clients. The Internet played a more significant role in maintaining interpersonal relationships than ever before. In this paper, the author reviews trends in the usage and development of social media and the Internet during the COVID-19 pandemic, with particular emphasis put on the case of Poland.

The aim of this article is to show not only how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced the use of the Internet and social media, but also to identify the steps Polish broadcasters took to meet the needs of their audiences, including health protection, interpersonal contacts, practicing faith and information transfer. To achieve this, the study primarily analyzed the activities of social media networks of the globally dominant Meta conglomerate 1 , i.e., Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. As a complimentary strand of research, the study analyzed the most popular (most downloaded) mobile app in 2020 -TikTok. However, it is worth noting now that while this article provides an overview, we do not fully know the social consequences of this period of networking relationships. That will require a study after the restrictions on social activities have ceased. and education, where teachers, in Facebook groups communicated with students as well as parents.
As with the growth in Internet use, there was an increase in the number of users of social media. In January 2021, 4.2 billion people, or more than half the global population, used social media, which is an increase of 13% since January 2020 (Kemp, 2021 reported on Instagram that in order to help people find reliable information, the website was introducing a global information center on COVID-19. It also introduced the stories sticker, which directly connected people to the news center, but above all was an expression of support for others. Notifications directing users to the news center were also displayed at the top of the user feed. In order to mitigate any potential network congestion associated with the large number of active Facebook users, the bit-rate for videos has been reduced in some regions. In line with the principles of crisis management, Facebook eventually ran tests to help improve services (Kang-Xing, 2020).
However, the main purpose of the platform was to facilitate people-to-people contact, provide users with access to verified and reliable information, re- disinfectants for hands, disinfection wipes and non-medical masks. However, in such cases, the advertiser had to meet the basic conditions: the ad history was supposed to be at least four months and the account could not appear as previously not meeting the conditions for placing the ads. Additionally, advertisers were only allowed to advertise these products in their home country.

PANDEMIC APPLICATION -TIKTOK
Tik-Tok is an application that has spread very quickly among social media users around the world. It is especially popular among teenagers aged 10-19 years, but during the pandemic it was also used by celebrities and influencers in other age groups. In 2020, it was the most downloaded application.  (Fung, 2020).
However, the potential of the application is noticed by more and more companies and personal brands, such as X-com or Ziaja. In March 2021, TikTok launched a new feature that allows users to purchase in-app products for a sponsored hashtag challenge. It also introduced the ability to filter comments for users over the age of 16 and a 'hint' tool, encouraging you to reconsider posting a comment that may be negative and offensive. In this way, the app wants to promote mutual positivity.
It should also be added that TikTok was used during the election campaign

INTERNET AS A SOCIAL SPACE
The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the development of not only social media, but also many industries related to new technologies. Due to the overview nature of this article, only selected areas of everyday life in which a perceptible digital change has occurred will be briefly presented. Education and office-based work were aspects of everyday life significantly influenced by the pandemic. National lockdowns caused school educators from March 12, 2020 to switch to providing online -distance or remote -learning. Also, many employers recommended their employees to work remotely. "Education during the pandemic changed 180 degrees the process of preparing classes by teachers and sharing and delivering content to students. The educators' task was to find the appropriate source of communication" (Piechowska, Romanowska, 2020, p. 33). As a result, the demand for webinar and videoconferencing software increased significantly in the digital market. Microsoft Teams became the primary communication tool between teachers and students. On this platform, you can create separate teams with their own chat, task list or file storage. You can also share your screen in real time, assign, monitor, and evaluate tasks and plan your class schedule. Other applications used in education, but also in professional work, are Zoom and Google Meet. The latter is part of the Google G Suite package, which integrates with other Google services.
The Internet was also helpful in Poland in spreading and practicing the Catholic faith. After the church hierarchs introduced dispensation from participating in Holy Mass, many parishes opted for online broadcasts. This phenomenon was especially intensive during the Christmas and Easter holidays. Many parishes also broadcast the Lenten retreat. Initially, many new YouTube channels were created, and requests for subscriptions appeared on parish social media accounts due to the limited availability of live streaming for mobile devices. However, in April 2020, YouTube lifted the requirement of 1,000 subscribers for religious entities. In a report published in "Religions", the researchers found that during the coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020,   Facebook profile -serve as the conclusion of this article. Tokarczuk foretells: Our children will come out of quarantine addicted to the Internet, and many of us will realize the futility and sterility of a situation in which we are mechanically and by the force of inertia. (…) Before our eyes, the civilization paradigm that has shaped us for the last two hundred years is blown away like smoke: that we are the masters of creation, we can do anything and the world belongs to us.