By Rommel F. Lopez
For the third year in a row, the Philippines leads the world for the most number of hours spent on social media and the Internet.
Marketing firm, We Are Social, and social media management platform, Hootsuite, in its Digital 2021 study revealed that Filipinos spent an average of 4 hours and 15 minutes each day on social media. This is a 22-minute increase compared to last year’s average of 3 hours and 53 minutes based on the country’s Digital 2020 performance.
The global average for social media usage is 2 hours and 25 minutes.
Coming in second place are Colombians who spend half an hour less in social media compared to Filipinos.
Japan logged in the smallest number of hours in social media clocking in an average of 51 minutes. We Are Social and Hootsuite said this is still 13 percent higher than Japan’s average last year.
Facebook is still the world’s number one social media followed by YouTube and WhatsApp.
In terms of spending time on the internet, the Philippines still placed first.
Even with the country’s poor internet speed and reliability, Filipinos logged a daily average of 10 hours and 56 minutes, an increase from last year’s 9 hours and 45 minutes average.
The global average for internet usage was 6 hours and 54 minutes.
Brazilians come in second clocking in an average of 10 hours 8 minutes, Colombians in third with 10 hours 7 minutes and South Africans 10 hours 6 minutes spent online.
Consistently, the Japanese also spend the least amount of time online in the world, clocking in less than 4½ hours per day.
The report also shows China spending just 5 hours and 22 minutes per day – 1½ hours less than the global average of 6 hours and 54 minutes.
E-commerce adoption also grew in the country to from 76 percent to 80.2 percent.
The two companies noted that rise in the country’s social media, internet, and e-commerce usage comes after Ookla Speedtest Global Index indicated an increase in the Philippines’ ranking in mobile Internet connection speed.
According to Ookla’s Speedtest Global Index, the Philippines ranked 96th out of 139 countries in mobile Internet speed, while it ranked 100th out of 176 countries for fixed line broadband Internet speeds
The Philippines had an average mobile Internet speed of 22.50 Mbps, way below the global average of 47.20 Mbps. Qatar has the fastest mobile Internet speed on the planet with 178.01 Mbps.
The Philippine’s fixed broadband internet speed was 31.44 Mbps in December 2020, three times lower than that of the global average of 96.43 Mbps. Neighbor Thailand has the fixed broadband internet speed at 308.35 Mbps.