2020 saw many strange changes to our lives — even the youth cleaned more than their parents

2020 was a challenging year for so many of us with the pandemic affecting our lives in so many way. It saw many of us change the way we live our lives so much so that new research from Samsung has shown that our usual actions were turned on their heads.

Samsung’s proprietary research, Australians@HOME uncovered how our relationship with the home changed throughout the year given we were stuck there for so much of it.

TV is always a winner

One thing was not a surprise — TVs were a hit. Nearly a third of Australians said that they watched TV together as a family more often in 2020 with 70% of household TVs measuring over 50 inches. It is surprising that 30% of all Australian TVs are in the bedroom but with Aussie households averaging 2.7 TVs per house they have to go somewhere.

In 2020 Australians spent on average 37 hours a week (5.3 hours per weekday and 5 hours per day on weekends) in front of a TV with each household averaging 1.2 subscriptions.

Cooking is fun after all!

If you spend some time on social media it will come as no surprise to you that cooking from scratch was a big hit in 2020 with many Aussies trying their hand at new and delicious meals. 44% of Australians found themselves cooking more from scratch with young families topping the list at 58% closely followed by Millenials (49%).

Possibly a result of this increase in cooking from scratch 29% of Aussies found themselves eating more meals together — there is also the possibility that everyone was stuck at home so where else were they going to eat? Victorians, who spent most of 2020 locked down were the highest in this category with 38% of meals eaten together as a family.

Hygiene is now a thing

One thing the pandemic has taught us — that I hope we all keep forever — is good hygiene practices. One in four Australians spent more time cleaning in 2020 with Millenials averaging 7.3 hours per week cleaning with 27% of people performing a deep clean weekly.

Interestingly, the deep clean was more prominent among the 18-24 year olds (40%) and the 25-39 year olds (33%) — out-cleaning their parents (for possibly the first time ever?) with 16% of 55-75 year olds deep cleaning per week. Once again, most likely because we were all stuck at home so we made more mess but were also home more so had more time to clean.

In an attempt to keep the COVID-19 virus at bay our cleaning of surfaces such as benchtops and floors was important to 79% of us. Correlating that to the above cleaning figures, this was highest among the 18-39 year old ages (88%) whereas the 55-75 year olds were still concerned (66%) but not as much.

2020 was a challenging year and now that we have gotten through it hopefully 2021 will benefit from all that we have learnt and our habits that have changed throughout it. Here’s to a better 2021.