We sleep on average 7,5 hours which means that we spent 16,5 hours per day in the simulated reality we call real. Time spent is a measure of how much we are attracted and feel engaged to stay inside the virtual environment.
The worldwide daily average was 6,42 hours in 2019, almost half of that time is spent on mobile devices according to HootSuite. The Philippines tops the list with on average 10 hours and 2 minutes screen time, followed by Brazil, at the bottom of the list is Japan with 3 hours and 45 minutes, followed by China. According to another research conducted by Statista, in 2011, 42% of total time spent per capita was on mobile devices, in 2019 this percentage has grown to 81%.
In 2012 we spent on average 90 minutes per day on social media, in 2019 the global average is 153 minutes per day. Also here, the Philippines is leading with on average 3 hrs and 53 minutes. This time is divided between YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat and Twitter.
If we consider all forms of interacting with media, whether this is watching TV or streaming video, reading online, listening to streaming music or playing games, than American adults spent more than 11 hours per day in 2018 according to Nielsen Research.
During the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020 a large jump in time spent online was seen because most countries had installed lock downs to prevent the virus to spread. In China, mobile users spent an average of 5 hours per day using apps across the first three months of 2020, representing an increase of 30% compared to the levels seen at the start of 2019. Italy saw a similar pattern, with users spending more than 10% more time in apps across the whole of the first quarter.
Microsoft reported a new daily record of 2,7 billion meetings in a single day and a 200 percent increase from 900 million minutes of Teams video and meeting use in mid-March, around the time many business shifted towards remote working. About 74 percent of CFOs surveyed by Gartner expect some of their employees who were forced to work from home because of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic to continue working remotely after the pandemic ends. The Coronavirus left a permanent mark on our society in many ways, one of the lasting changes is that it accelerated the time we spent in simulated reality. Many people including myself routinely spent easily 8 hours or more connected to video and meeting collaboration platforms at home when working and another 4 hours watching series on Netflix, hang out on social media or play games online. We reached and went over the threshold that we spent more time in artificial reality than in the real world during the Coronacrisis.
