Adults now consume eight hours of media each day

The IPA has released its TouchPoints 2017 data today, highlighting how the GB population spends their daily lives and how their use of communications channels and device fits into this.

Adults are now spending nearly eight hours a day consuming media, up 9% from 2016 and 13% from 2005.

In addition multi-media consumption is continuing to grow, with 92% of adults consuming two or more media in the same hour at some point during the week, up from 79% in 2015. Furthermore, over 26% of all adults are consuming more than three different media in any half hour.

Adults spend just over two hours a day media multi-tasking – nearly a quarter of the time spent consuming media in total.

In terms of each individual medium, television/video continues to be the largest medium in terms of both weekly reach and average hours viewed. This is true for both all adults and for millennials – however, big differences between adults and millennials can be seen in usage of social media and newsbrands, as demonstrated in the charts below.

The next generation of media brands continued to show healthy growth in usage in this latest TouchPoints release, with highlights including:

• Netflix being viewed by 19% of all adults each week for an average of about two hours per week, up from 16% in 2016. For millennials these numbers change to 39%, up from 33% in 2016
• 38% of both adults and millennials listen to Spotify each week – this rises to 55% of 15-24s
• Whatsapp recorded a 22% increase for adults and a 9% increase for millennials from 2016 to 2017
• Snapchat recorded a 17% increase for adults and a 16% increase for millennials

IPA President Sarah Golding and CEO of CHI & Partners says: “This latest TouchPoints 2017 data proves, unequivocally, that our media consumption patterns are continuing to grow and fragment as technology, new platforms and media channels are delivering an ever wider choice of content, available to us on a 24/7 basis.

“The knock-on effect on our lives – both personally and professionally – cannot be underestimated. As such, this data is invaluable in helping our industry to recognise the most appropriate ways to approach consumers – one that improves lives rather than interrupts.”

Check out a useful infographic here.

Correction (18th Sep): Netflix is watched 2 hours per week – not, as we originally reported, per day.