50% of US Residents Spend Most of the Day on Screens

Limiting screen time for children and adolescents has been the topic of much discussion and research during the COVID-19 pandemic, with schools closing and parents having to balance working from home with supervising their offspring. As data from our Statista Global Consumer Survey shows, adults would be well-advised to take a little more care of their own digital wellbeing as well.

50 percent of respondents from the US said they spend more than half or almost the whole day in front of a screen, be it a laptop, smartphone, desktop PC or TV. Only 17 percent are spending just a little time with digital screens on an average day. The share of people not too concerned with digital disctractions is similar in the UK and Germany, even though those two countries score higher marks when it comes to limiting their own screen time. Roughly 40 percent of participants in the UK and only a little more than a third of participants in Germany are staying glued to their smartphones, computers and TVs for more than half of their day.

Lockdowns and self-isolation orders during the coronavirus pandemic have drastically increased media consumption all around the world. According to market research by GlobalWebIndex, news coverage consumption went up by 36 percent, while usage of messaging apps and social media went up by 22 and 21 percent respectively.