Time Eaten by Social Media Apps (UK, May 2024)
- fariha islam
- Mar 2
- 2 min read
People swear they “barely go on social media,” but the average UK adult is spending up to 44 minutes a day on YouTube alone. So where is all that time actually going? Using Ofcom’s Ipsos iris audience data for UK internet users (18+), I pulled the average daily minutes per online adult spent on major social platforms in May 2024, then turned it into one visual idea: apps as weights that literally pull you away, because the real story isn’t which apps exist, it’s which ones quietly eat the most minutes.
What the infographic shows
The bubbles represent minutes per online adult per day (May 2024). In other words, it’s not “minutes per user of the app”, it’s minutes averaged across all online adults, which rewards platforms that combine high reach and high engagement.
Key takeaways
Two apps dominate the time budget -> Youtube (44.18 min) + Facebook/Messenger (35.49 min) account for ~79.67 minutes/day, or about two-thirds of the total time captured in this social-app set (≈120.24 minutes).
TikTok vs Instagram is close; reach is the separator. TikTok (13.77) slightly edges Instagram (12.92), but they’re effectively competing for the same “mid-tier time block.”
“Small” apps are truly small in time-share. Pinterest (0.28) and Quora (0.16) are real platforms, but their share of total time in this set is tiny (≈0.2% and 0.1%).
Method and analysis behind the design
1) Data extraction
I used Ofcom’s Online Nation Report 2025 and extracted May 2024 social-platform metrics based on Ipsos iris Online Audience Measurement (age 18+, UK internet users).
2) Core metric used in the bubbles
Minutes per online adult (May 2024). This metric is powerful because it blends:
Reach (how many adults use the service)
Time spent (how long they stay)
3) Bubble sizing hierarchy
To make the hierarchy instantly readable, I sized bubbles proportional to time spent (minutes per online adult). This makes YouTube and Facebook/Messenger visually unavoidable, which matches the data.
Notes
Population: UK internet users 18+ (online adults).
Timing: May 2024.
Interpretation: “Minutes per online adult” ≠ “minutes per user of that app.” It’s a population-average measure.
Data source
Source: Ofcom, Online Nation Report 2025 (Ipsos iris Online Audience Measurement), UK internet users 18+, May 2024
Writer + Design: Fariha Islam
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