Teenagers spend 27 hours a week online: how internet use has ballooned in the last decade

Young people aged between 16 and 24 spend more than 27 hours a week on the internet, communications watchdog Ofcom said as it laid bare the extent of the UK’s changing internet habits over the last decade.

People are spending twice as much time online compared to 10 years ago, fuelled by increasing use of tablets and smartphones. The biggest increase has been among young adults, with time spent online almost tripling from 10 hours and 24 minutes each week in 2005 to 27 hours and 36 minutes in 2014.

In total, the average adult spends more than 20 hours online a week, which includes time spent on the internet at work. Meanwhile the average person spends 2.5 hours every week “online while on the move” - away from their home, work or place of study. This is a five-fold increase from 2005, when the figure was just 30 minutes.

Overall, the proportion of adults using the internet has risen by half - from six in ten in 2005 to almost nine in ten today, according to Ofcom’s Media Use and Attitudes 2015 report, which questioned 1,890 adults aged 16 and over about their internet consumption habits.

Computer is still king, and is still the primary device for accessing online content. However, tablet and smartphone use has been steadily increasing, and two thirds of adults now regularly use a smartphone. In particular, activities such as watching video clips online, playing games, instant messaging and social media have driven growth in mobile internet use in the UK.

Meanwhile, instant messaging use has leapt from 38pc of mobile phone users in 2013 to 42pc in 2014, driven by services such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

More people are also watching TV and films online. A quarter of internet users regularly catch up on programmes online, compared to one in ten in 2007. This rises to 39pc of 16-24 year olds, up from 21pc in 2007. However, TV is still an important method of consumption for many. When asked which device they would miss the most, almost four in ten adults said they would feel most lost without a television.

“New technologies are opening up a myriad of other possibilities for young people. It’s not just watching content – they’re messaging friends, texting at the same time. Inevitably, as the younger generation gets older and they set up their own home, TV viewing consumption will be affected,” said Toby Syfret, a tv analyst at media research firm Enders Analysis.

“However, a 40-inch television screen offers quality you can’t get from a tablet or smartphone. So televisions are never going to become unimportant. But viewing habits are changing as people become more comfortable with catch-up and on demand services.”

The mobile phone is now the primary device used for gaming with a quarter of mobile users playing games at least once a week, compared to 17pc playing on games consoles, the report said.

With this, social media has also become popular among all age brackets. Some 80pc of internet users aged between 35 and 44 are now on social media, up from just 12pc in 2007.

In total, the use of social media has tripled since 2007, when Ofcom first asked people about their social media habits. Nearly three quarters of internet users aged 16 and above say they have a social media profile, compared to 22pc in 2007.

Four in five social media users log into these websites or apps – which include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or Tumblr - at least once a day, up from 30pc in 2007.

Almost 70pc of internet users say they feel comfortable giving away personal information on the internet, including their home address, and a quarter say they don’t read website terms and conditions or privacy statements at all. Two-thirds of internet users use the same passwords for

most or all websites. However, people are becoming more privacy conscious in general. Six in ten Facebook users say they have changed their privacy settings to make them more private, while seven in ten say they only share their photos with friends.

The report comes after the European Commission announced a wide-ranging investigation of the role websites such as Amazon, Facebook and Google play online and whether competition rules should be tightened in response.

The aim is to build a unified regulatory framework for the internet across the continent, with the aim of redressing the balance that has seen US tech giants dominate the online world.

Among other reforms, the Commission hopes to break down barriers to accessing on-demand content across borders, making services like Netflix, BBC iPlayer and Sky Go available to everyone, regardless of which EU country they’re in.