Hello,

It seems like we spent our entire day online these days.

But is it really true or just feels that way?

What does the data say?

I explore this in today’s post.

I was surprised to know that the avg. time spent online, worldwide, has stopped increasing - and seems to have hit a ceiling around 6 hours 30-40mins per day.

This covers all devices and activities and includes time spent on work and leisure.

One implication of above, is that the competition for user time will get more fierce in coming years, and will be cross-category (shopping, social, media etc.)

This data shown is from surveys of internet users across various countries. This is conducted by Global Web Index and covers millions of respondents over time.

Another interesting observation is that there is a wide variation in time spent online across countries.

Internet users in South Africa, Philippines and Brazil spend close to 10 hours every day, online, while Japan and China are much lower on the list.

One hypothesis for Japan’s online time to be so low, could be its ageing population. Older people tend to spend less time online and Japan has a lot of them.

But one thing does stand out:

Internet users in developing countries in Africa, Latin America and South East Asia spend more time online compared to advanced economies, esp. in Europe.

This is also consistent with wide use of Mobile internet in these countries which is also a big part of people’s work life there.

📢 Shoutouts

• If you work in tech, you’ve probably experienced a refactor or two. Learn about how refactors are a necessary part of innovation in “Frankensteining” — the latest article from Turtle’s Pace, a newsletter about making things that matter at a sustainable pace.

• If you like reading newsletters (like me), check out The Sample. They send you articles matching your interests and is a great way to discover new writers!

That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading! 👋