There’s no doubt that social media has become an important part of our daily lives. Whether it’s to connect with friends and family, keep up with the latest news, or discover new products and brands, there are plenty ofreasons consumers hop on social media sites.

The growing number of activities consumers can carry out on these networks has led to an increase in the average time spent on social media over the past decade.

As an ecommerce business owner, one question you need to ask before launching asocial media marketing strategyis: How much time does the average person spend on social media?

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Average time spent on social media

According to thelatest data, the average amount of time spent on social media worldwide is set to hit 147 minutes, or two hours and 27 minutes, a day in 2022. Not only is this a two-minute increase on 2021 numbers, but it is also the highest ever recorded.

It is also the first increase in four years, after the average time spent on social media held steady from 2019 to 2021, at 145 minutes per day.

To understand how much average social media use has soared, we only need to journey back a decade. In 2012, the average amount of time spent on social media worldwide was 90 minutes (1.5 hours) a day. This rose to 95 minutes in 2013, before rising further to 104 in 2014, and, in doing so, surpassed the 100-minute mark for the first time.

The increase in the average amount of time spent on social media didn’t stop there. Daily time spent continued climbing and hit 111 minutes in 2015 and 128 minutes in 2016. By 2017, that number was 134 minutes—nearly three-quarters of an hour longer than in 2012.

From 2012 to 2022, the average time spent on social media worldwide increased by nearly one whole hour (57 minutes), or 63.3%.

When crafting a social media strategy, it’s useful to know that social media use varies from country to country. For instance, the latest statistics onsocial media usage by countryshow that the average time spent by consumers in the Philippines is 248 minutes a day. In comparison, users in Saudi Arabia spend 196 minutes a day on social media.

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