Media Use

Always On: Media Usage Amounts to 10+ Hours a Day

It's no secret that people spend a lot of time with their smartphones and other electronic gadgets these days. How much time that actually is, is astonishing nonetheless: according to Nielsen's latest Total Audience Report, Americans aged 18 and older spend roughly ten and a half hours a day watching TV, listening to the radio or using their smartphones and other electronic devices.

Considering that most people are awake 16 to 18 hours a day, 11 hours of electronic media usage seems like a lot, but, to be fair, much of that probably happens while doing other things at the same time. It's a good thing people were given the ability to multitask; otherwise we wouldn't get a whole lot done these days.

Description

This chart illustrates how much time American adults spend using electronic media per day.

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Average daily media use in the United States from 2012 to 2018, by device (in minutes)
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Daily time spent with selected media in the United States from 2nd quarter 2015 to 1st quarter 2020 (in minutes)
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Average time spent per day with digital media in the United States from 2011 to 2024 (in minutes)
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Time spent with media in the United States in 2nd quarter 2018, by time of day (in minutes)
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Average weekly media use in the United States as of October 2025, by medium (in hours.minutes)
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Time spent per day with major media in the United States from 2019 to 2026 (in hours.minutes)

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