There are 3.8 billion global social media users, so despite it being unsurprising, it’s even more worrying to consider just how many countless hours we spend trawling through the likes of Instagram and TikTok. It seems nothing is reducing our screen time.
And whilst we all spend differing amounts of time browsing online, have you ever stopped to consider just how many hours you rack up and where your country sits among others for social media usage?
Leading experts at OnBuy.com were keen to explore how long countries from all around the world spend on social media over a lifetime, crowning the country most and least obsessed with social media! OnBuy trawled through 45 countries to expose the top and bottom 10 countries.
Countries Spending the Most Time on Social Media
The country most obsessed with social media is the Philippines. On average, they spend a shocking 4,252 days on platforms such as Twitter during their lifetime, which is the equivalent of 102,054 hours. People from the Philippines may live until 72 on average, but they rank in the bottom 10 countries for average life expectancy.
In second place is Colombia, who have an average life span of 74 years, meaning they spend a whopping 4,220 days during their lifetime on social networks, equating to 101,288 hours scrolling through all their favourite social media sites.
Brazil ranks in third place with people spending nearly4,000 (3,923) days, resulting in 94,152 hours consuming all things social. Brazil rank 28th for life expectancy with 77 years.
Other Ranking Countries:
The United States of America – 2,463 days (27th out of all countries)
Ireland – 2,293 (31st out of all countries)
Canada – 2,266 (33rd out of all countries)
Australia – 2,214 (34th out of all countries)
Countries Spending the Least Time on Social Media
Japan ranked as the country least obsessed with social media with people spending 970 days (23,269 hours) despite an expected life span of 85 years (second highest across 45 countries analysed – just behind Hong Kong). Not far behind them was Austria, who have a life expectancy rate of 82, and rank second from the bottom with people spending 1,289 days and 30,928 hours of their life staring at social media platforms.
The United Kingdom are the ninth lowest country for social media usage spending 2,120 days and 50,881 hours on social media despite also having an expected life span of 82. Germany places as the fifth lowest (1,642 days and 39,408 hours).
Additionally, OnBuy surveyed 2,153 people per country ranking in the top 10 and bottom 10 to delve deeper into media habits. The survey exposed that a whopping 82% said they use social media too much, whilst 79% said they spend 7 hours or more a week on social media based on screen time calculations provided exclusively to OnBuy.
Perhaps that’s not surprising as 66% use social media to keep in touch with family and friends, especially since much of 2020 has been limited with face to face interaction. Meanwhile 61% use it to read the news and 54% had nothing better to do and use it just to fill spare time!
A scary 30% believe that if they don’t use social media daily, they will be missing out on the latest gossip. While an alarming quarter of those surveyed (25%) said they have turned down a night out to spend further time on social media instead!
METHODOLOGY:
To do this OnBuy used official data from We Are Social and Hootsuite, which stated how much each country spends daily on social media. Using this data, OnBuy worked out how much each country spends in hours, per day per 1,000 population. Life expectancies for each country was gathered and figures were calculated to estimate how long each country would spend over a lifetime on social networks in hours and days. The top and bottom 10 countries were extracted.
