Each month we highlight a few of the statistics that form the basis of stories on the ResponseSource Press Release Wire. We’ve highlighted some that contain research around coronavirus topics but we were surprised at how little this featured, with seasonal topics like the clocks going forward and Mother’s Day, and original research on perennial stories like AI, social media and exams, still dominating. Here are our picks for March:

Technology and work

Text analytics company Utopia Analytics says that typically 18%-25% of news comments violate the terms of online services like social media networks and forums, calculating that a typical news site that receives one million news comments every month would need to reject 7,000 comments a day. Read the full story.

The switch to BST prompted Guidant Global to share research that for every hour of interrupted sleep, workers ‘cyberloafed’ (browsed non-work-related websites) for 20% of their assigned task,  which it estimates leads to an annual productivity loss of $434m. Read the full story.

Creative management platform Bannerflow has been speaking to marketers and found that the most desirable skills from new hires for in-house teams were digital marketing knowledge/qualifications (requested by 34% of respondents), creative thinking (for 27%) and organisational skills (for 21%). Read the full story.

61% of staffing firms are either currently utilising AI or automation in recruitment or plan to introduce it in the next year. 59% expressed concerns about AI meaning a less personal approach to recruitment, and 56% said the cost involved had put them off. Read the full story.

Family and health

Skincare brand Sudocrem said that top presents for Mother’s Day were more straightforward (and cheaper) than you might think, with 94% of mothers surveyed saying they would like eight hours of sleep, 80% asking for a long bath and 77% just wanting some adult conversation. Read the full story.

Exam time was still in prospect when revision aid The Study Buddy shared research and tips around education anxiety, saying 80% of young people report that exam pressure has a significant impact on mental health. They advise that a maximum of 50 minutes in each hour should be spent on study. Read the full story.

Hearing aid company Oticon says that hearing loss can put extra stress on the brain and cites research that adults with hearing loss who used hearing aids reduced their risk of Alzheimer’s by 17% and depression by 14%. Read the full story.

Coronavirus statistics

30% of the UK PR industry is afraid it will have to stop trading according to PR community #FuturePRoof. Access to domestic customers (57.4%) and loss of income (80.9%) were the biggest immediate challenges named by PR professionals. Read the full story.

Market research agency Walnut Unlimited says stockpiling has been over-hyped, with just 18% of a survey of 2,011 GB adults saying they’d stockpiled food and 16% for toiletries, toilet roll or medicines by 15 March. At the time of the survey (before new regulations came into effect) nearly half had already changed their personal hygiene habits and 46% had stopped shaking hands. Lots more details in the full story.

By early March, Liberty Marketing had noted the shortage of hand sanitiser and analysed eBay asking prices, noting mark-ups of between 1,100% and 5,000% for various own-brand sanitisers. Read the full story.

We provide these as a jumping-off point for your own research and you should perform your own checks on any of these stories – a few tips in this post. If you’d like to source experts, further information or case studies for any of these topics or something else you’re working on, head to the (free) Journalist Enquiry Service to save hours of research and expand your network of sources.