A new study into the social media habits of Australians has found that, on average, those aged 14-plus spend about six hours a week perusing the likes of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and WhatsApp.
However, in a result that will probably shock no one, the Roy Morgan study found that Australian women aged 14-24 were the biggest users of social media, averaging a whopping 822 minutes a week. That’s about 13.7 hours a week or close to two hours a day.
Women in general spend an average of 391 minutes per week on social media which is close to two hours more per week than the 287 minutes per week spent by men.
While women aged 14-24 spend nearly five hours, or 294 minutes, more time on social media per week than men aged 14-24. The difference is also stark for women aged 25-34 who spend 183 minutes more time on social media per week than men aged 25-34.
Social media use – total minutes in an average week by gender and age
Commenting on the results, Roy Morgan CEO, Michele Levine, said: “New research from Roy Morgan exploring how Australians engage with different types of social media reveals some interesting insights. Young women in Australia spend an average of nearly two hours a day on social media compared to just over an hour for similarly aged young men.
“In fact women of all ages spend more time on social media than men of the same age. On average Australian women spend 56 minutes per day on social media compared to 41 minutes per day for men. Over the course of a week this equates to a difference of almost two hours.
“Of course social media isn’t just one big market but rather differentiated by a large variety of overlapping and varied networks that appeal to different aspects of a user’s experience. Different Australians engage with social media in their own way and for their own reasons.
“Digging into the Roy Morgan data allows in-depth analysis of what characterises a typical user of social media networks including Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, WhatsApp, MeetUp, Reddit, Google Hangouts, Yahoo7 Messenger & Answers, Skype, WordPress, Flickr, Imgur, Pinterest, Messenger, Snapchat, Viber, WeChat and Yammer,” she said.
