There’s no question social media marketing is one of the most popular ways to grow a business. In fact, the numbers say it all: there are 3.78 billion social media users worldwide in 2021, and in the US alone, as many as 82 percent of the population use social media. 

But to really understand how and where to market your products, you not only need to know what the most popular social media platforms are, but you also need to understand exactly how consumers are distributing their time amongst them.

So just what’s the average time spent on social media per day and how does it vary according to each platform? 

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Time Spent On Social Media: Top Platforms

According to the latest data on time spent on social media, US users spent the most time on Facebook. On average, consumers are expected to spend 33 minutes a day on the platform in 2021.

Even though Facebook reigns as the King of Social Media, users’ time spent on the platform has actually been decreasing over the years. In 2017, the average social media user in the US spent 39 minutes on Facebook. This fell to 36 minutes in 2018 and 33 minutes in 2019 before rising again slightly to 35 minutes in 2020.

At 32 minutes a day, the platform on which US social media users spend the second most amount of time is TikTok. This is very impressive since it was only launched in the US in 2017. 

This is followed by Twitter with 31 minutes and Instagram with 29 minutes. Snapchat rounds out the five platforms US social media users spend the most time on per day at 28 minutes.

COVID-19 Boost to Average Time Spent On Social Media

Of these five platforms, four are expected to see a decrease in the average time spent from 2020 to 2021. Only Snapchat held steady at 28 minutes.

This is due to the boom in the average time spent on social media in 2020 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. With lockdowns being implemented across the country, consumers were forced to stay home. To keep themselves entertained, many turned to social media.

Even though the average time spent on social media in 2021 will fall slightly from 2020’s figures, they are still expected to be higher than the time spent in 2019.

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