Conclusion 1: Average Time Spent

Conclusion 1: Average Time Spent

While looking at all the social media screen time data as a collective, the average time spent (sum of all weekly averages/number of participants) on social media daily was three hours and 16 minutes. This does not include participants #2 and #36; these participants have Android smartphones that do not provide the data for time spent specifically on social media, only overall screen time. Below is the breakdown of which social media apps were most common among individual participants:

Table 7

Conclusion 1: Social Media Platform Popularity

As seen above, Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok are the most used social media apps among Edmonton young adults who sent in their social media screen time screenshots. By a narrow margin, Instagram is the single most popular social media app. Further research could be done to determine why this is the case and what separates Instagram from other social media platforms. Based on the results, the average time spent on social media was three hours and 16 minutes and most of it was spent on Instagram. According to a worldwide study, the average daily time spent on social media across the globe is two hours and 41 minutes for people between the ages of 16 and 64 (Statista, 2021). Statista (2021) also showed that the most used social media platform in the world is Facebook; Instagram only ranks at #4 for worldwide popularity, after YouTube and WhatsApp. This current study’s results indicate that young adults’ social media habits differ from worldwide averages. Young adults in Edmonton have a higher daily average spent on social media in comparison to the general worldwide population. The results also indicate that they do not use the most popular worldwide social media platform most frequently; instead, they frequent Instagram the most.