Screen Time and Internet Usage Statistics 2024

If you’re reading this, you may very well spend nearly all your waking hours online. In our recent survey, we found that the average American spends up to 16 hours and 10 minutes per day across all of their screened devices combined.

The majority of Americans (70%) say that affordable internet is “essential” to their daily life—but how much of that time is spent on actually doing essential tasks for work and school, and how much is spent instead on slightly less-essential things like scrolling social media or binge-watching a favorite Netflix series for the fourth time? Does every generation use the internet the same way for the same things?

From the boomers to the zoomers, we surveyed Americans about the specifics of their online time. In this report, we discuss devices, screen time, and tasks, and then we break down our findings by age groups. We also talk with health experts about how people can maintain healthy boundaries with their devices. “Balancing screen time is SO important, especially since screens are designed to keep us hooked. One thing that really helps is setting clear limits—like no screens during meals or an hour before bed,” says Cheryl Groskopf, a mental health therapist in Los Angeles.”

Do your online habits match your peers, or did you log into the wrong generation?

Americans spend the bulk of their online time using phones and TVs—the devices that best allow for browsing social media and streaming popular series, movies, and music.

Smartphones take up nearly a third of the combined online time across all devices. On average, individuals spend approximately five hours and two minutes everyday on their phones just browsing social media (more on that later). This mass proliferation of phone usage is enough to raise the alarm for healthcare providers in the country.

“Between work and our personal lives, most of us are juggling multiple different screens daily," says Dr. Valerie Sheety-Pilon, vice president of Clinical and Medical Affairs at insurance provider VSP Vision Care. "That’s why it’s important to not only take frequent breaks whenever you find yourself spending a long time looking at a digital device, but to also make time for other activities that you enjoy."

It’s easy to throw on “an episode or two” of a show before getting locked in: Connected TVs follow smartphones in usage time, with an average of three hours and 49 minutes daily.

Computers have taken up less of our screen time, but smartphone, tablet, and laptop portability isn’t completely killing off the desktops. It turns out that people spend about the same time on laptops as they do on desktop computers—two hours and 47 minutes daily versus two hours and 30 minutes daily, respectively.

Despite what you may think, the oldest form of online communication hasn’t been overtaken by more modern means like social media or app messengers. According to our survey, email stands as the most universal online activity—i.e. virtually everyone who is online uses email in some form.

Right behind email, online shopping is one of the most universal activities.

Over half of our respondents (55.87%) said they use the internet for work, and about 30% said they did school work using the internet (it makes sense that, with age, fewer respondents are attending school and working).

Social media cuts across all age demographics and has become almost universal: just under 90% of our survey respondents said they browse social media—in other words, only one person out of ten will say they don’t use social media.

That said, health experts counsel internet users to keep away from their phones before bedtime if they can. “Studies have proven that using a screen prior to bed negatively impacts your quality of sleep and mental well-being,” Courtney Morgan, a licensed therapist and founder of the group Counseling Unconditionally, tells Reviews.org. “Screen time before bed often leads to people falling asleep later, difficulty relaxing enough to fall asleep, and may act as a reminder of worries or anxieties that may make it difficult to fall asleep.”

Our survey shows that streaming TV takes up to three hours of the average American adult’s day. And social media browsing isn’t far behind TV, either, with individuals spending an average of 2 hours and 43 minutes daily. Along with the two-and-a-half hours of streaming movies, the vast majority of our time online is spent watching things (though you could argue social media can be more creative, productive, and interactive).

It’s worth mentioning that online activities may overlap: many “watch TV” while they browse social media, and checking socials can be done in quick spurts or as an endless doom scroll—otherwise how could they squeeze in so many activities in their waking hours?

• Whistle while you work: streaming music and work tie for the same average time of two hours and 29 minutes daily.
• Gaming time averages two hours and 15 minutes, beating out average email time at two hours and 1 minute.
• Telehealth and online banking occupy less time compared to other activities, with averages of one hour and 5 minutes and one hour and 30 minutes respectively.

Baby Boomers spend most of their online time watching connected TVs, closely followed by using smartphones. They have the least time logged gaming—which makes sense for the generation that didn’t grow up with any household gaming consoles.

Gen X spends the most time watching TV out of any generation, but still spends more time on their smartphones.

Millennials track over six hours on smartphones and spend about 4 hours every day watching TV—and still squeeze in computer and gaming time. Millennials also spent the most time on desktops and laptops.

Zoomers take first place for most time spent on smartphones and still spend about as much time as other generations watching TV. On top of that, they spend the most time gaming too.

• Millennials and Gen Z spend the most time on smartphones, with averages of 6 hours and 2 minutes and 6 hours and 16 minutes respectively.
• Gen X spends the most time on connected TVs, 4 hours and 3 minutes, followed closely by Boomers averaging 3 hours and 58 minutes.
• Gen Z spends the most time on gaming consoles compared to other generations, with an average of 3 hours and 5 minutes per day.
• Across all generations, desktop usage is the least used screen device on average compared to more portable devices like tablets or laptops.

If we want to talk about which generations use their online time in the most “productive” ways, Millennials take the top spot for work and email—but they also take the top spots for most time spent gaming and streaming TV and movies.

Gen Z spends an hour less on average for work, but about as much time using email and about 40 minutes more on average for school time; they spent nearly as much time as millennials on gaming, too.

Ostensibly with age, the Boomers (hitting or nearing retirement) and Gen X’ers (started working and left school after the standardization of the internet) are spending the least time online on work and school, as well as email.

• Millennials spend the most time on streaming services across all categories, with an average of 3 hours and 37 minutes per day.
• Gen X allocates the highest amount of time to online shopping, averaging 2 hours and 10 minutes daily.
• Across all generations, social media browsing and online banking are activities that consistently take up a significant portion of daily screen time.

The Internet now has 5.35 million users worldwide and up to 94% of Americans have access to the internet. Thanks to the internet’s booming popularity and growing affordability, we have all the tools we need to get things done and pass the time, too.

Smartphones have taken over a lot of our time, and the internet is far from the old stereotype of being a nerdy and niche task-oriented tool.

While the essential tasks like email, online shopping and banking, and work and school may take priority in most cases, the entertaining online tasks like browsing social media and streaming TV, movies, and music take up more than their fair-share of our online time—regardless of what generation we belong to.

Reviews.org surveyed 1,000 Americans 18 years and older with a +/- 4% margin of error and a confidence level of 95%. The survey results were weighted to reflect characteristics of the United States population using available data from the US census.

For generational age ranges, we refer to Pew Research.