Azlan Othman
The amount of time the world spends online continues to decline according to the Digital 2023 April Global Statshot Report, which states that the latest figures have revealed that the typical Internet user aged between 16 and 64 worldwide now spends an average of six hours and 35 minutes per day using connected tech.
Published by Meltwater and We Are Social last month, the report noted that the worldwide average is down by two minutes per day compared with the figure in the Digital 2023 Global Overview Report back in January, equating to a quarter-on-quarter decline of half a per cent.
The data indicates that Internet users have reduced their online activities by an average of 18 minutes per day since this time last year, resulting in a year-on-year reduction of 4.4 per cent.
The report added, however, that while these changes in the time that we spend online are important, it’s also worth putting the latest figures in perspective. For example, we’re still spending an average of over six and-a-half hours per day using the Internet, which is more than twice as much time as we spend watching television.
Moreover, the current average suggests that the world will still spend a combined total of 1.4 billion years of cumulative human existence using connected tech in 2023 alone. So, while we may be spending less time on the Internet, there’s nothing to suggest that the Internet is becoming any less important in our lives.
With the world average coming in at six hours and 35 minutes, Japan has the lowest time spent online per day at three hours and 51 minutes, while South Africa spends the most at nine hours and 27 minutes.
The United Kingdom is below the world average with an average of five hours and 42 minutes, while India’s average is six hours and 39 minutes, while the United States average is seven hours and two minutes and Singapore’s seven hours and seven minutes.
Since the second quarter of 2021, time spent online has steadily declined from six hours and 57 minutes to six hours and 35 minutes today. Yet, while the decline in time spent online is intensifying, Internet users still spend more time online than watching TV.
The report shared that, in comparison, Internet users spend three hours and 12 minutes watching TV, one hour and 49 minutes reading the press (both online and in print) and one hour and 28 minutes listening to streaming music.
Meanwhile, data has also revealed that it now takes less time for us to access the content that we want when we do go online, with analysis from Ookla revealing that Internet connection speeds have increased significantly over recent months.
Mobile bandwidth has jumped by a third over the past year, with the worldwide median reaching almost 40 Mbps in February 2023.
As for digital adoption and use in Brunei Darussalam in early 2023, the report said there were 442.2 thousand Internet users in the Sultanate at the start of 2023, when Internet penetration stood at 98.1 per cent.
Brunei was home to 425.6 thousand social media users in January 2023, equating to 94.4 per cent of the total population. A total of 576.0 thousand cellular mobile connections were active in Brunei in early 2023, with this figure equivalent to 127.8 per cent of the total population.
The analysis also indicated that Internet users in Brunei increased by 3,556 (+0.8 per cent) between 2022 and 2023. For perspective, these user figures reveal that 8,565 people in Brunei did not use the Internet at the start of 2023, suggesting that 1.9 per cent of the population remained offline at the beginning of the year.
