Ever find yourself buried in the most recent Facebook updates, updating your Twitter account, or obsessively scrolling through Instagram? An average internet user currently spends 144 minutes (2 hours and 24 minutes) on social media, according to data provided by the Atlas VPN team. This works out to a staggering 876 hours, or almost 36.5 days, every year.
Internet users interact regularly with 6.6 social media accounts each month, on average, around the globe.
These numbers were created using information from DataReportal. The information is based on a poll of internet users between the ages of 16 and 64 on their use of social media.
Nigerians use social media more than users in other nations evaluated in the survey, spending an average of 238 minutes (or 3 hours and 58 minutes) of their daily time on it, despite only 14.3% of the country's population being active users. With 235 minutes (3 hours and 55 minutes) per day of social media activity, internet users in Ghana are not far behind.
The third place on the list is taken by Brazil. There, people use social media every day for 224 minutes, or 3 hours and 44 minutes. However, the nation tops the list in terms of the frequency with which social media platforms are utilised, with 8.1 social networks being actively accessed each month by internet users in the country.
Kenya and the Philippines come next. People in the two nations use social media every day for 216 (3 hours, 36 minutes) and 215 (3 hours, 35 minutes), respectively.
Japan has the lowest daily social media usage of any of the countries studied, at barely 50 minutes. With 66 minutes (1 hour and 6 minutes) per day spent on social media, South Korean neighbours are likewise reluctant to use it. Based on the total amount of time spent online, both nations are among the bottom five.
The ageing populations in Japan and South Korea may have an impact on internet usage trends in those countries. Around 40% of the inhabitants in Hong Kong, South Korea, and Japan are expected to be 65 years of age or older by the year 2050, according to figures published by the World Economic Forum.
Except for Portugal, most Europeans spend a lot less time on social media than others across the world do.
The least active social media users in Europe are Swiss and Austrians. Internet users in these nations spend daily averages of 92 (1 hour and 32 minutes) and 91 (1 hour and 31 minutes) minutes on social media, respectively.
People in the US connect to social media every day for 135 minutes (2 hours and 15 minutes).
People spend a significant amount of time on social media, but why? The majority of people use social media primarily to stay in touch with friends and family; nearly half (48.2%) say this is their main activity.
With 36.8% of respondents citing it as a cause, filling idle time is another big reason for using social media. Additionally, 34.5% use social media websites to follow news stories.
Finding content (29.2%), observing what is being discussed (27.6%), getting ideas for things to do and buy (25.5%), discovering products to buy (25.3%), watching live streams (22.8%), taking part in opinion-sharing and -discussion activities with others (22.6%), and making new contacts (22.2%) are additional reasons for using social media.
According to done by Forbes, Generation Z, aged 16 to 24, is the group most dependent on social media. This includes women in particular. Compared to men, who spend 2 hours and 40 minutes online on average, women spend 3 hours and 11 minutes online.
Unsurprisingly, people aged 55 to 64 are the least interested in social media. Compared to males, who spend an hour and a half on these websites, women spend an hour and a half on them.
Women continue to spend the most time on social networks, regardless of their age.