A new report by the Internet Advertising Bureau UK (IAB) that intends to debunk the statistics provided by other agencies on the amount of time spent by users online, has revealed that Britons spend 2 hours 51 minutes per day on an average actively on the Internet.
IAB collaborated with UK Online Measurement Company (UKOM) for the report and duo intends to bring clarity to the market about the amount of time people actively spend online. The findings are based on the data collected from comScore.
The report breaks up the total time spent by users into the types of devices used as well as the purpose for which they are online.
The report notes that out of the 2 hours 51 minutes, users access the Internet using PCs/Laptops for 1 hour 16 minutes (45 per cent); smartphones for 1 hour 9 minutes (40 per cent); and tablets for 26 minutes (15 per cent).
The data comes from a combination of meters measuring the behaviour of 73,000 people (a panel) plus thousands of sites and apps being tagged.
According to the report, 16.7 per cent of all UK internet time across computers, tablets and smartphones is spent on social media. The report also notes that social media has overtaken entertainment, whose share nearly halved from 22.1 per cent to 12.4 per cent. Next is gaming which takes up 6 per cent share.
Looking at device based usage, social media accounts for over double the share of mobile/tablet internet time (21.4 per cent) than it does of desktop internet time (9.8 per cent). Gaming is another area where mobile/tablet time spent is higher at 8.6 per cent compared to just 2.3 per cent on PCs/laptops. Instant Messaging (6.7 per cent vs 0.8 per cent) and News (4.8 per cent vs 2.2 per cent) also take up a much larger proportion of mobile internet time than desktop time.
In contrast, entertainment accounts for over double the share of desktop internet time (18.5 per cent) than it does on mobile/tablet (8.3 per cent); for email, it’s over six times the share (5.0 per cent vs 0.8 per cent).
“There’s a lot of confusion when it comes to the various sources claiming to measure how long people spend on different media,” said the IAB’s Chief Strategy Officer, Tim Elkington. “So, we wanted to put a stake in the ground for internet time to remove this misconception and help advertisers understand how much time they realistically have to play with to reach people online. It equates to about 1 in every 6 waking minutes.”
