We have an interesting (and maybe kinda depressing) report coming from TechCrunch using data provided by a mobile app analytical firm, data.ai.
We have data and fancy infographics and all sorts of other smart people stuff that shows average time spent in mobile apps is topping four or five hours per day in over twelve worldwide markets.
That’s more than most part time jobs… spent with your eyeballs looking at apps like TikTok, Instagram or other bullsh*t… that’s a lot of time, dawg.
Of course all this data varies from country to country and some are less awful than others; however, three markets (Indonesia, Singapore and Brazil) are topping five hours a day while the other ten are hitting four hours.
Wow. When you spell it out in a graph like that – it’s really something. How often are most people awake every day? Let’s take the U.S. based average for adults aged 19-30 of about 15 hours. If you’re spending 4-5 hours a day just with your face inside your stupid little phone looking at TikTok or something, that’s 1/3 of all of your time spent not sleeping… every day. It kinda bums me out, not gonna lie.
And I bring TikTok up often here because generally speaking it’s the most popular app people are dumping their time into, per the data provided by data.ai.
There used to be the argument of time spent in apps increasing due to the pandemic, however that reasoning has stagnated since 2020’s boom in app usage – nowadays the numbers are just steadily climbing as more people spend time online and on their smartphones.
Still, the data suggests the pandemic may have led to longer-lasting impacts on app usage. It seems mobile consumers who adopted new apps and behaviors during the pandemic may have kept at it, despite the so-called “return to normal” in 2022.
TechCrunch
It’s clear this growing time spent in apps actually is our “new normal”. As an example, TechCrunch points to Q2 2020: “Singapore users were spending 4.1 hours in apps. Now that’s grown to 5.7 hours”.
Not every market has grown at such a rate, some have declined slightly – so that’s good, but the declines are definitely the minority here.
Man, just wait for people to start “jacking-into” the internet like the Matrix or Sword Art Online and I’m pretty sure we aren’t gonna be worried about app usage time anymore…
