British adults spend an average of 4 hours and 20 minutes a day online using smartphones, tablets and computers, according to a survey of consumers' digital habits for Ofcom's annual Online Nation report. In 2023, the average adult over the age of 18 will spend 3 hours and 41 minutes online, which is a huge improvement, especially considering that the gap from 2022 is only 8 minutes;
As you can see from the table above, much of the increase in average time spent online has been driven by usage among younger adults. Teenagers aged 18-24 who are obsessed with TikTok and Instagram spend 6 hours and 1 minute online. This is an increase of 1.5 hours from 2023, when online time was 4 hours and 36 minutes. Perhaps predictably, those over 65 spent the least time online, at three hours and 10 minutes. A big question is whether today's young users will be as active online (or even more so) when they become older adults;
If so, it means society may be slowly moving toward an all-digital existence; the report's 116 pages of data and charts are long. Here are a few striking numbers:
Two heroes fighting for hegemony.Overall, there is a long list of services that are attracting audiences, but two names really take the top spot: Alphabet and Meta. The two companies own websites that together account for nearly half of the time UK adults spend online. YouTube is the most visited website, with 94% of adults spending time on it at some time during the year. Visitors spend an average of 49 minutes watching YouTube videos every day.
70% of users accessed all Meta’s three major platforms - Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, with Facebook/Messenger having the highest penetration rate at 91%. Facebook still has low traction, though among 18-24-year-olds, who spent just 15 minutes on Meta’s flagship platform. Interestingly, Ofcom does not appear to include Google usage in online visits;
Women use the Internet more than men.Ofcom singled out a number of gender-based consumption patterns. Overall, women spend 33 minutes more online than men (4:36 vs. 4:03), and among Generation Z (18-24 years old), women spend even an hour more online than men. Some of the reasons may have to do with the nature of the content they consume: Women prefer social media sites that are optimized and designed to keep people scrolling and clicking. For example, TikTok ranks as the 10th most popular website among women and the 16th most popular website among men;
social media.The top status of social media remains stable, with YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok firmly in the top four. Things start to get interesting in fifth place;
Reddit is the fastest-growing social platform, profiting from the decline of X-née Twitter. About half of all UK online adults (22.9 million people) were using Reddit as of May 2024, up 47% from 33% or 15.6 million people the previous year, Ofcom said. These numbers helped Reddit jump into fifth place among the most popular social media sites, surpassing X and LinkedIn. We'll have to wait and see if this is a new phenomenon or a new trend, and whether the newer sites can maintain some momentum;
Currently, Bluesky and Threads are the leaders. Ofcom noted that Bluesky had just 80,000 users in May this year, that number rose to 127,000 in August, and then suddenly jumped 263% to 461,000 users in September, the last month it tracks for this report (which will be updated in the coming months). Judging from what has happened in other markets over the past two months, Bluesky is likely to continue this trajectory as it suddenly begins to emerge as the leading alternative to X. X is still far ahead with 21.2 million users, while Meta has only 6.6 million Threads. Interestingly, while Snapchat has gained a lot of traction among younger users, other age groups have ignored it, so it ranks 10th with 9.8 million users;
generative artificial intelligenceIt's still very much a nascent service, but there are current signs that men are becoming more enthusiastic early users. About 50% of the men surveyed have used GenAI services, while only 33% of women have used it. Ofcom found that women also had less direct knowledge of these services, and those who did were more skeptical of their benefits to society and themselves;
Ofcom's findings in this report are also important as they go some way towards laying the foundation for its investigations and other work. For example, it expects to publish a code of practice on protecting children online in the first half of 2025. To this end, it also highlights some areas where online content and engagement fall short in terms of security:
While two-thirds (67%) of online adults say "the benefits of going online outweigh the risks," this share is actually down from a year ago, when 71% said they did;
Young adults may be online more, but they don't seem to enjoy it: Ofcom says they are "less likely than older people to think they have a good balance between online and offline life, and older children are more concerned about the time they spend online than younger children".
Misinformation is so harmful that as of June 2024, 39% of users aged 13 and older said they had encountered some misinformation. 30% of users aged 13 and above said they had also seen content that "made them feel uncomfortable, disturbing or negative". Both proportions are up from 2023;
Hateful, offensive or discriminatory content is also on the rise, with 26% of adults saying they have encountered such content online (up from 23% in 2023).
Young users are telling lies to get online. Ofcom found that 20% of 8-15 year olds have claimed to be at least 18 years old as a user on a social media platform, highlighting regulatory challenges. Ofcom noted: "There are signs that social media services are verifying users' dates of birth more frequently, with users saying they are seeing more age checks on social media sites. (Whether these measures are being followed is another question)."
Ofcom found that 35% of users aged 13-17 said they had encountered offensive or "bad" language online, down from 40% a year ago. Ofcom found that harmful content related to body image remains a problem, particularly among female teenagers. Social networking sites like TikTok are trying to proactively curb this tendency before regulators force them to do so.