How much time do you spend on social media? What about gaming and shopping apps? It can be hard to log off, because many of these services are engineered to keep our focus for as long as possible. If you think you may have an addiction, you aren't alone.
Sortlist analyzed internet usage across different apps and found that the average person spends two hours and 25 minutes a day on social media: That's over three days a month and 36 days, 18 hours, and five minutes each year.
Looking at specific apps, we spend an average of 11 days and 14 hours on YouTube each year. Meta's collection of apps all rank among the top 10 most used social apps: Users spend just under 10 days on Facebook and WhatsApp each per year, while Instagram keeps people on for just over five days. TikTok users are on the app six days and 16 hours a year.
As for other apps, the three categories that are used the most all fall under gaming. Sports games are used an average of 23 minutes per session, while casual and hyper-casual games are played 21 and 19 minutes per session, respectively. By comparison, we only spend nine minutes shopping, six minutes banking, and five minutes making payments per session.
The country that spends the most time online is Philippines, with 166 days on the internet and 65 days spent on social media. Other internet-obsessed countries include Brazil, Colombia, South Africa, Argentina, Malaysia, Mexico, Indonesia, Thailand, and Taiwan.