As the COVID-19 pandemic is dominating the news, coronavirus is having an unprecedented impact on almost everyone. Measures to respond to the outbreak and ensure public safety, like stay-at-home orders and suspending travel, have resulted in lost income for many.
Today (3/25/20), just in week 1 into shutdowns of some cities, we polled 1,400 users to see whether the virus has already impacted their incomes. 42% of respondents answered “I have lost income”, while 38% answer “My income is unchanged”. Excluding those who didn’t answer, fully 50% of respondents have had their incomes reduced. The average income was 25 years old.
Mei (pronounced “May”) built an anonymous polling platform into an SMS texting app, enabling quick and easy polling capabilities. As the primary messaging app in the phones of 50,000 users in the US, Mei ran a poll of opt-in users to determine the impact of the Coronavirus on their lives during week 1 into shutdowns in some cities and was able to deliver results in real-time.
Mei users can choose whether to opt into “Anonymous Polling” in the advanced features menu. Before that option is possible, users must turn on the AI assistant, which uploads the text message database and allows our system to build insights.
We gave all users the opportunity to decide if they want to answer polls or not; they were free to skip the questions or turn off the polling feature. This means that the people who answered the polls are doing so because they wanted to and that the data is authentic. Mei also gave users the opportunity to select their own freeform response in case the ones listed aren’t sufficient.
Respondents for this and all polls remain anonymous.
For more information about Mei Messaging, its polling platform and other products, please visit www.textmei.com