Digital Communication to Compensate for Social Distancing

This paper aims to determine the potentials as well as the limitations of digital communication to compensate for the massive decrease in direct social interaction due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The availability of "DorfFunk" - a smartphone app for communication in local rural communities - was expanded in three German federal states during the spring of 2020 to counteract some of the negative consequences of measures taken to contain the spread of the virus (curfews, quarantines, social distancing). Here, we present the results of a survey on the experiences, needs, and perceived benefits/limitations of DorfFunk users in times of the pandemic. The results indicate that DorfFunk can contribute to coping with such a situation, especially in the local sphere. Local information and the connection to the community turned out to be of importance, while functionalities for the interaction with other individuals were regarded as secondary. The benefits of DorfFunk were valued more positively in regions where the service had been established already before the pandemic.