Is 12 hours of screen time a lot?

12 hours by group

Percentile is the share of the group reporting less screen time than this a day. “1 in X” counts the rarer side: people at or beyond this value above the median, at or under it below. Percentiles are estimated from a normal distribution with each country's mean and the global SD of 2.2 hours.

What this means

• 12 hours a day is 4,380 hours a year, about 183 full days, or 75% of a 16-hour waking day.
• That is 324 minutes more than the global mean of 6 h 36 min. The closest country mean is the Philippines at 9 h 36 min; in Norway, at 5 h 48 min, 12 hours is above the 99th percentile.
• Kept up for 45 years, the horizon our screen time test uses, 12 hours a day adds up to 22.5 years of waking life on screens.
• DataReportal's figure is what internet users aged 16 to 64 told a survey, counting phones, computers, TV and consoles together. People underestimate phone time and overestimate TV, so the number is rough. It is not a peer-reviewed study, and the spread is our estimate.

Questions

Is 12 hours of screen time too much?

There is no medical line for adults; the guidance that exists is for children. Against the data, 99% of internet users report less than 12 hours a day and 1% report more. That is more than nine in ten people report, even in the Philippines, which tops the survey.

What is the average screen time per day?

DataReportal's 2024 global mean is 6 h 36 min a day across all devices. The Philippines tops the list at 9 h 36 min, Japan is lowest at 5 h 6 min. The United States reports 7 h, the United Kingdom 6 h 18 min and Norway 5 h 48 min.

How rare is 12 hours of screen time a day?

Worldwide, about 1 in 142 internet users report 12 hours or more. In the United States it is 1 in 87, in Japan 1 in 1,169.