There are currently over 6.6 billion smartphone users in the world. But how does the time that the average South African spends on their device compare to other countries?
A new interactive calculator created by the experts at Sortlist allows you to discover the average amount of time you spend on devices, the apps consuming the most of your time and how this compares to other countries.
The world’s top 10 countries spending the most time on their screens:
According to the research:
- South Africa is the country spending the world’s 4th highest time online, with the average person spending 10 hours and 6 minutes a day browsing the internet, which equates to 154 days a year. Brazil also spends 3 hours and 32 minutes a day on social media, equating to 54 days a year.
- The average person spends around 52,925 minutes scrolling social media each year, which is a whopping 36 days, 18 hours and 5 minutes.
- Sports games are the apps taking up the most of our time, as the average user spends around 23 minutes on these apps, followed by casual gaming (21 mins).
- Looking at specific apps, YouTube is the one we spend the most time on (11 days, 14 hours), compared to the likes of TikTok in 5th place (6 days, 16 hours).
Nicolas Finet, Co-Founder and CMO at Sortlist has revealed why the calculator was created and the importance of taking a digital detox every so often:
“Over the past 18 months or so we have spent more time behind a screen than ever. As a result of the pandemic, many people have been forced to work from home, spend copious amounts of time on Zoom calls and used their free time to scroll social media and utilise the array of apps at our disposal, but all of this time spent online can build up.
Without even knowing, we spend a lot of time behind a screen and because of this, we wanted to create the calculator to enable users to fully understand the extent of our digital lives and where the majority of our time is spent and how this compares to countries across the world.
In today’s world the majority of day to day tasks are completed online and this isn’t a bad thing, but it’s important that we remind ourselves that there is more to enjoy than just social media and online browsing. Taking a digital detox can be extremely beneficial and there are a number of steps you can take to have some time away from your screen including:
- Deleting social media apps for a short period of time
- Remove notifications from apps to avoid temptation
- Set aside some ‘phone free time’ each day to enjoy other activities
Taking a digital detox isn’t always easy and temptation can get the better of us, but if you’re persistent and enjoy some time away from your screen, it’s very likely you’ll reap the benefits from doing so.”
BUSINESS REPORT