The time and money we spend on social media, clothes, and gaming is insane, part 1: Social media and clothes.

February 14, 2022 by Joshua
in Habits

People spout bullshit that they don’t have time or money for home-cooking, daily exercise, or to sleep enough. I’m sure you’re different, but I’ll bring up numbers on things people spend time and money on.

From: Average Time Spent Daily on Social Media (Latest 2022 Data)

On average, we spend 144 minutes, or two hours and twenty-four minutes, on social media but this number is just that – an average. In some places in the world, people spend far more time on social media, and in others, they spend far less. 

Studying this helps us get a better understanding of how impactful social media is in the lives of people in some societies versus others. 

By continent, here’s a breakdown: 

  • North America: 2 hrs 6 min.
  • South America: 3 hrs 24 min
  • Africa: 3 hrs 10 min.
  • Europe: 1 hr 15 min.
  • Asia/Oceania: 2 hrs 16 min.

Time spent on social media in a lifetime: nearly 6 years and 8 months on social media in their lifetime based on the projections for social media use in 2020.

Facebook reigns supreme when it comes to time spent within the platform: 58 minutes per day on average, according to a study by SimilarWeb.

In 2019, 59 percent of all Facebook users are between 18 and 34 years old

YouTube’s big advantage is that its average visitor spends 40 minutes on the site at a time.

SimilarWeb found users spent an average of 53 minutes per day on Instagram in 2018.

From: How Much Time Does The Average Person Spend On Social Media?

3.96 billion people use social media today, which accounts for roughly half (51%) of the global population.

On average, global internet users spent 144 minutes on social media sites every day.

When it comes to countries with the most time spent on social media per day, the Philippines is at the top with users spending an average of 3 hours and 53 minutes on social media per day.

In the United States, people spend 2 hours and 3 minutes on social media each day.

People, on average, interact (swipe, type, click, tap) with their phone a whopping 2,617 times each day. The number rises to 5,427 when it comes to heavy mobile users.

Facebook still has 1.79 billion daily active users.

In 2019, users were spending an average of 27 minutes per day on Instagram.

An average user spends 11 minutes 24 seconds per day on YouTube.

TikTok users spend an average of 46 minutes per day watching videos on the app. An average TikTok users opens up the app 8 times in a day.

From: How Much Time Do People Spend on Social Media in 2021?

  • An average person spends 145 minutes every day on social media.
  • 4.2 billion people worldwide used social media as of early 2021.
  • Americans spend 33 minutes a day on Facebook.
  • As of 2021, TikTok ranks second in terms of average daily time spent on the platform.
  • The average amount of time spent on social media is highest in the Philippines — 4 hours and 15 minutes a day.
  • People aged 16–24 spend 3 hours every day on social media.

145 minutes is just over 10% of the day. This number is already a significant chunk of your waking hours — and it seems to be going up

People spend an average of six years and eight months of their life on social media.

Americans spend 33 minutes a day on Facebook.

An average visitor spends 41.9 minutes on YouTube.

There are 500 million Instagram daily active users. The numbers related to the user-generated content (UGC) on Instagram are quite staggering as well. About 96 million photos and hundreds of millions of stories get uploaded on this platform every single day. The average daily time spent on Instagram is 29 minutes.

16–24-year-olds spend approximately 3 hours and 1 minute every day on social media.

About 90.4% of all millennial internet users are on social media, compared to only 48.2% of baby boomers who are active there. Furthermore, 77.5% of Gen-Xers are social media users.

Social media use in the Philippines of 4 hours and 15 minutes a day is much higher than the global average of 2 hours and 25 minutes. Generally speaking, continents like South America, Africa, and Asia have higher-than-average daily use of social media.

As of early 2021, Colombia, Brazil, Kenya, and Nigeria are also in the top five. The US ranks in the middle with 2 hours and 7 minutes. Meanwhile, Japan has the world’s lowest average daily use of social media — only 51 minutes per day.

41% of Gen-Z users say they’re wasting too much time on social media.

On average, people spend almost 17 hours (16.9 to be more precise) every week on social media. Translated into minutes, this is a staggering number of 1,015 minutes. With each year, this figure keeps growing.

On average, people spend about 36.6 days on social media every single year. This is more than a month.

From: 17 Staggering Statistics About Our Shopping Habits

(This post was written by Joshua Becker, a podcast guest)

1. The average woman makes 301 trips to the store annually, spending close to 400 hours a year shopping. This amounts to 8.5 years spent shopping during a typical lifespan. (NY Daily News)

2. Americans spend more on shoes, jewelry, and watches ($100 billion) than on higher education. (Psychology Today)

3. Shopping malls outnumber high schools in America. (Affluenza)

4. 33% of Americans shop online at least once per week. 69% shop online at least monthly. (Mintel)

5. While 50% of online shoppers will increase the size of their orders just to hit the free shipping minimum. (Mintel)

6. An estimated two-thirds of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) comes from retail consumption. (The Balance).

7. On average, an American between the ages of 18 and 65 has $4,717 of credit card debt. (TIME)

8. 63% of Americans do not have enough savings to cover a $500 emergency. (Forbes)

9. When asked about hobbies, girls (age 13-18) identified shopping as their favorite pastime. (Adweek)

10. And 96% of adults and 95% of teens admit they participate in some form of retail therapy. (Yahoo)

11. More than a third of adults and teens said shopping made them feel better than working out. (Yahoo)

12. The average American throws away 65 pounds of clothing per year. (Huffington Post)

13. The $8 billion home organization industry has more than doubled in size since the early 2000’s—growing at a staggering rate of 10% each year. (Uppercase, note: link no longer available)

14. Americans now spend more money on dining out than groceries. (Fox News)

15. The average American woman spends 190 hours each year shopping for clothes, shoes, or window shopping. That same survey found that these same women spend 95 hours shopping for food—this task occupies only half the time of shoe, clothes and window shopping. (Forbes)

16. 50% of Americans will go shopping on Black Friday. (Syracuse)

17. Worldwide, total retail sales were more than $22 trillion in 2014, according to a report from eMarketer.com. And total annual U.S. retail sales have increased an average of 4.5% between 1993 and 2015, according to the U.S. (The Balance)

The numbers paint a jarring picture of excessive shopping and unnecessary consumption. This fascination with shopping might be okay if it was improving the happiness of our lives. But as most of us know, the happiness derived from accumulating material possessions doesn’t last. We ought to be looking elsewhere.

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