The Internet Sucks Up a Full Day of Our Time Each Week

The net is proving to be very expert at least one thing: dominating your costless fourth dimension. A new study finds that Americans on average spend 24 hours each calendar week online.

The number will probably surprise no one, but information technology represents a huge uptick since 2000, when Americans spent only 9.4 hours each week on the net.

Our demand to get online is condign an "essential component to daily life," according to the USC Annenberg Middle for the Digital Time to come. Since 1999, researchers at the center have been surveying over two,000 Americans on their cyberspace habits each twelvemonth. From 2000 to 2022, net usage at abode rose from 3.iii hours to 17.6 hours per calendar week. Fueling the change has been smartphones and mobile apps; 84 percent of Americans now access the cyberspace through their phones, up from 23 percent in 2022.

Internet use at home

Use of email via smartphones has likewise grown to 79 percent, up from 21 percent in 2000.

With all this time glued to our devices, experts have been studying the furnishings of internet-based technologies on the public—and the results haven't been all expert.

In a split up study published on Monday, researchers found that adolescents who spend a lot of time on smartphones and electronic communication tend to exhibit "lower psychological well-existence." In dissimilarity, adolescents who spent a modest amount of time on smartphones were the happiest.

Facebook recently admitted that passively consuming content over the social media platform tin can brand yous feel bad; the more you interact with and comment on items, the better you feel. As a result, Facebook is revamping its News Feed to more prominently feature updates from friends and family.