Smartphone Are the Bulk of Our Digital Media Diet

Smartphones eat about a quarter of our day, a seven percent increase from last year. Digital media has eaten up more and more of the average American’s time, starting with just 2.7 hours a day a decade ago. Nearly all that growth has come from the amount of time people spend on smartphones, while computer time has declined, and connected device time has inched up only slightly. While digital media hours have been climbing, they are projected to plateau in the coming years, evidenced by the shrinking growth rate.

These findings were released in the annual Internet Trend report from Mary Meeker of Bond Capital, a long-time investor whose annual report is famed in the venture capital world. In addition, Meeker also found that media time and advertising spending are equaling out. In 2010, only 0.5 percent of advertising dollars were spent on mobile, while 8 percent of all media time was spent on mobile—a huge gap between ad dollars and eyeballs. By 2018, those numbers have evened out, with a third of media time being spent on mobile, and a third of media ad dollars following those users.