What the world does online in 2024
Top online activities in 2024
More than 6 in 10 of the world’s 5.35 billion internet users go online to find information, but our online activities have actually become more varied over the past year. Social interaction is also a big reason for using the internet, but news content is losing ground to entertainment content.With internet users spending an average of more than 6½ hours online each day, the internet accounts for roughly 40 percent of our waking lives at the start of 2024.
But what are we actually doing during our 400 daily connected minutes?
Let’s dive deeper into the data to find out.
Top internet motivations
Ongoing research from GWI reveals that “finding information” remains the primary reason for going online around the world, with more than 6 in 10 working-age internet users citing this as a primary motivation for using the internet.
“Staying in touch with friends and family” ranks second, with more than 56 percent of internet users between the ages of 16 and 64 saying that this is one of the main reasons they go online today.
These two motivations topped the rankings this time last year too, but – somewhat surprisingly – the number of people choosing these options has actually increased year on year.
The number of people choosing “finding information” has grown by a relative 5.4 percent (+310 basis points) over the past 12 months, from 57.8 percent in our Digital 2023 Global Overview Report, to 60.9 percent today.
Meanwhile, “staying in touch with friends and family” saw similar gains, with the number of people identifying this as a top motivation also growing by 5.4 percent since this time last year.
However, we’ve also seen some meaningful drops over the past year.
For example, the number of people citing “gaming” as a primary motivation for using the internet has dropped from 30.5 percent in 2023’s report to 29.3 percent today, equating to a relative annual decline of 3.9 percent.
“Meeting new people” and “sharing your opinion” have also seen year-on-year dips, with the number of people choosing these options both sliding by more than 1 percent.
However, perhaps the most interesting change in these rankings involves the third most popular motivator.
This time last year, “keeping up to date with news and events” ranked third at a worldwide level, with 50.9 percent of survey respondents choosing this answer option.
And while that figure has actually grown by a relative 2 percent over the past year, it hasn’t grown as quickly as “watching videos, TV shows, or movies”, which grew by a relative 5.2 percent (+260 basis points) since this time last year.
And that means that news and current affairs have slipped to fourth place in this year’s motivations, behind entertainment.
Doing more online
Overall, GWI’s data reveals that we’re actually doing more online this year than we were at the start of 2023, which is a reversal from the trend we saw this time last year.
Indeed, a decline in online activity was one of our surprise top stories in January 2023, when we reported that people only cited an average of 7.04 primary motivations for using the internet.
But that average figure has bounced back again this year, with people citing an average of 7.22 motivations in GWI’s latest round of research.
Admittedly, the year-on-year increase in that average figure isn’t huge – just 2.6 percent – but it’s still enough to counter a trend that we hypothesised might point to a meaningful change in the way that people use the internet.
And it’s worth highlighting that today’s average of 7.22 is still well below the average of 7.94 that we saw this time five years ago.
However, with the average rising again, it’s worth keeping an eye on these figures to see whether they will continue to increase during 2024, or if the recent growth is just a short-term “blip” in survey responses [you’ll be able to find out in our regular Quarterly Statshot Reports].
But in the context of that increasing average, it’s also worth noting that the amount of time that people spend online has actually increased over the past 12 months.
We explored a decline in online time as part of last year’s analysis too, but GWI’s latest data shows that average daily internet time has now returned to a level above the one we saw in Q3 2019, just before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
So, it seems as though the amount of time we spend using the internet, and what we do once we’re actually online, are indeed connected.
That’s probably not a surprise, but the key question is whether the amount of time we spend online is the result of deliberate action, or whether we find ourselves “meandering” across the internet, and doing “more stuff” online as a result.
The answer to that question is likely to vary from individual to individual and over time, but the data can offer some valuable insights in this regard too.
Let’s take a closer look at what people are doing online, by exploring behaviours related to those top motivations.
Note that we explore the latest social media trends in a separate article though, so we won’t cover “staying in touch with friends and family” in any further detail here.
Finding information
First up, it wasn’t just the year-on-year increase in the share of internet users citing “finding information” that surprised me.
If you’ve been reading the mainstream press or marketing media in recent months, you’d be forgiven for thinking that young people have largely “given up” on search engines like Google.
However – much like the widespread reports of social media’s “demise” – these headlines turn out to be wildly misleading.
As we’ll see below, younger people are in fact the heaviest users of search engines, just as all the (reputable) evidence shows us that social media continues to grow [you can find lots more on that social media story in this deep-dive article].
Search surprises
But for initial context, it’s worth highlighting that “finding information” remains the primary motivation for going online across all age groups in GWI’s survey, including amongst “Gen Zs” and “Gen Alphas” aged 16 to 24.
Sure enough, older generations are slightly more likely to cite this activity as a primary motivator, with 66.9 percent of internet users aged 55 to 64 selecting this option, compared with 60.7 percent of 16 to 24 year-olds.
However, that younger cohort still ranked third across the age groups, with people aged 25 to 34 and 35 to 44 less likely to choose this answer option.
The share of 16 to 24s has also increased over the past year, from 57.4 percent this time last year, to 60.7 percent today, equating to a relative, year-on-year increase of 5.7 percent.
However, when it comes to the use of search engines, the younger group comes out top.
The latest data from GWI shows that 82.6 percent of internet users aged 16 to 24 use search engines each month, compared with 80.9 percent of internet users aged 25 to 34, and 78.1 percent of audiences aged 55 to 64.
So no, “the kids” are not abandoning Google.
And just for context, Statcounter reports that Google still accounts for more than 91 percent of all search engine referrals, although that share has dipped slightly over the past 12 months.
Multiple choice
However, while young people are still avid users of search engines, that only tells us part of the story.
And perhaps the key finding is that young people have quite varied behaviours when it comes to finding information online, especially when compared with their parents’ generation.
For example, more than half (51 percent) of internet users around the world between the ages of 16 and 24 say that they visit social networks when researching products and services that they’re thinking of buying, compared with just 32.5 percent of internet users aged 55 to 64.
Meanwhile, younger women are particularly likely to turn to social channels when researching brands, with GWI’s latest data revealing that more than 56 percent of female internet users aged 16 to 24 seek out brands on social media.
This compares with just 38.7 percent of men aged 55 to 64, with men significantly less likely to use social media for brand research than women across all age groups in GWI’s survey.
Moreover, “finding” things overtly accounts for 3 of the top 7 reasons for using social media across all age groups, especially when it comes to content.
Researching purchases
But perhaps the most revealing indicator when it comes to finding information online relates to researching the things that we’re going to buy.
Overall, GWI’s research suggests that older shoppers are more likely to research brands, products, and services online before making a purchase.
The average difference across ages is relatively small, although male internet users show greater variance in behaviours by age.
However, research shows that where people go to conduct their research does have some important differences by age.
As a whole, internet users are still most likely to turn to search engines when they’re actively looking for information about brands, with more than half (50.3 percent) of worldwide survey respondents choosing this option.
Social networks rank second, with 46 percent of working-age internet users selecting this option [note that respondents could choose more than one option].
Social search
But when we explore this data by age, a more nuanced story emerges.
Internet users below the age of 35 are more likely to turn to social media when researching things they’re considering buying, with more than half of this age group selecting social networks as a channel for brand research.
But the relative likelihood of conducting research on social media declines with age, and social networks rank just fourth amongst internet users aged 55 to 64, with less than 1 in 3 people in this cohort selecting this answer option.
That share has grown meaningfully over the past year though, with the current value of 32.5 percent a relative 13 percent higher (+380 basis points) than the 28.7 percent we reported for that older age group this time last year.
And for perspective, the use of social networks for brand research has increased across all age groups in this year’s data, including younger users.
So, given that social search is clearly rising in importance, let’s turn our attention to the platforms that people use.
It’s important to highlight that the percentages shown in the table below represent the share of active users of each platform, and not the share of internet users overall.
However, the findings are no less revealing after that clarification.
Overall, 83.1 percent of the active users of eight of the most widely used social media platforms outside of China say that they research brands on at least one of those channels.
Instagram ranks top, with the platform’s active users the most likely to research brands on that platform compared with users of other platforms.
But despite the media’s fervent excitement about “TikTok search”, Facebook actually ranks second when it comes to people looking for information about things they’re going to buy.
And given that Facebook remains the world’s most used social media platform, this finding has particular significance.
TikTok does rank third, but it’s worth stressing that less than half of the platform’s active users say that they actively research brands on the platform each month.
And Pinterest is also worthy of note, especially because researching brands is actually the top reason why people say they use the platform.
Finding answers
So what can we learn from all this data?
Here are my top three takeaways:
Search behaviours vary by age, but young people are still avid users of search engines like Google.
Younger internet users adopt a “portfolio” approach to finding information online, and search engines aren’t their only choice.
Social search is growing in importance, and these behaviours offer significant opportunities for brands.
Socially connected
As I noted above, we explore the latest social media trends in a separate, dedicated article, so we won’t go into “staying in touch with friends and family” in much detail here.
However, it is worth noting that chat and messaging platforms are more popular than social networks, albeit only by a small margin.
At a worldwide level, 94.7 percent of internet users between the ages of 16 and 64 say that they used a messaging platform in the past month, compared with 94.3 percent who say that they used a social network.
These two categories top the rankings across all ages, but it’s interesting to note that their order is reversed for the youngest cohort, with internet users aged 16 to 24 more likely to prefer social networks over messaging platforms.
However, when we look at the actual numbers, people in that younger age group are more likely to use chat and messaging apps than users in any other age group are to use social networks.
Specifically, 96.4 percent of those younger users say they use chat and messaging apps each month, whereas the top figure for that same activity across all other age groups is 95.8 percent, for users aged 25 to 34.
▶ Dig deeper: click here if you’d like to explore our complete collection of social media trends in 2024.
The decline of news
Meanwhile, one of the most interesting digital trends over recent years has been the decline in the appeal of online news content.
Five years ago, GWI reported that an even 60 percent of working-age internet users cited “keeping up to date with news and events” as a primary motivation for using the internet.
This ranked this activity second overall after “finding information”, with news content even more of a motivator than “staying in touch with friends and family” in GWI’s Q3 2018 wave of research.
However, on a relative basis, news’s popularity has declined by more than 15 percent over the past five years, with just 51.9 percent of respondents in GWI’s latest wave of research choosing this answer option.
As a result, “keeping up to date with news and events” ranks fourth in our latest report, behind “watching videos, TV shows, or movies”.
It’s worth highlighting that the latter, entertainment-focused category has also seen declines over the past 5 years, from 54.8 percent in Q3 2018, to 52.3 percent in Q3 2023.
However, those declines have been far smaller than we’ve seen for news, resulting in a change in the rank order.
But GWI isn’t the only research organisation reporting a precipitous decline for news.
The excellent 2023 Digital News Report, published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ), shows that less than half of online adults are now “interested in news”, and that share has fallen dramatically over recent years:
“Data shows that online consumers are accessing news less frequently than in the past, and are also becoming less interested. Despite the political and economic threats facing many people, fewer than half (48 percent) of our aggregate sample now say they are very or extremely interested in news, down from 63 percent in 2017. Meanwhile, the proportion of news consumers who say they avoid news, often or sometimes, remains close to all-time highs, at 36 percent across markets.”
Old news?
Data from both GWI and RISJ indicates that interest in news varies meaningfully be age.
For example, GWI’s latest research shows that following news and events remains the second-top motivation for using the internet amongst internet users aged 55 to 64, and the category is still ahead of “staying in touch with friends and family”.
However, news only ranks ninth amongst internet users aged 16 to 24, and people in this age group are more likely to use the internet to “waste time” online (“fill spare time and browsing”) than they are to seek out news and current affairs content.
The relative importance of news content increases meaningfully by age, and the oldest cohort in GWI’s survey is almost one-quarter more likely to cite news as a primary motivator than the youngest age group (59.1 percent vs. 47.8 percent, respectively).
But the RISJ’s data paints an even starker picture.
The organisation’s 2023 Digital News Report shows that just 1 in 3 people aged 18 to 24 (34 percent) say that they’re “interested” in news, compared with 54 percent of people aged 55 and above.
We explored the RISJ’s latest data in some depth in our Digital 2023 July Global Statshot Report, so click here if you’d like to dig deeper into that rich dataset.
But the fact that entertainment content has overtaken news is perhaps the key finding here.
Online entertainment
The internet is a primary source of most forms of content for the world’s connected populations, so it’s perhaps no surprise that entertainment content features prominently in our online activities.
“Watching videos, TV shows, and movies” now ranks third amongst top internet motivations at a worldwide level, with 52.3 percent of working-age internet users selecting this answer option in GWI’s latest wave of research.
However, this figure doesn’t tell the full story, and other data suggests that online entertainment is actually a much bigger draw than this headline figure suggests.
For example, 92 percent of working-age internet users say that they’ve watched an online video in the past week, with music videos the most popular type of online audio-visual content.
That overall figure has held relatively steady since 2015, albeit with some minor fluctuations over time.
It’s also worth noting that a change in GWI’s methodology since this time last year may have played a part in pushing this year’s total towards the lower end of the range we’ve seen over recent years, rather than an actual change in people’s behaviours.
As is almost always the case, GWI’s data reveal differences in behaviour by age, with younger people more likely to say that they watch online videos than older generations.
However, with more than 6 in 7 internet users aged 55 to 64 saying that they’ve watched a video on the internet within the past 7 days, it’s clear that online video is universally popular.
There are also some minor differences by geography, but only Japan falls below 80 percent for weekly online video consumption.
This may be partly skewed by Japan’s high median age, but Japan’s internet users invariably show markedly different behaviours to those we see in almost every country in the world, so age isn’t the only factor to consider here.
Streaming TV
TV streaming shows remarkably similar patterns to online video consumption, with just under 92 percent of GWI’s survey base saying that they’ve watched TV via an on-demand – or “over-the-top” – streaming service in the past month.
Interestingly, we have seen the number of people using these services decline slightly over the past few quarters in GWI’s survey, and values have fallen since the peak of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and 2021.
It’s interesting to note that TV streaming is popular across all ages though, and while we do see slightly lower adoption amongst older age groups in GWI’s survey, roughly 6 in 7 internet users in this age group around the world say that they’ve watched a streaming service in the past month.
The geographic distribution also mirrors that of online video as a whole, although it’s interesting to note that Russia ranks bottom in this particular dataset, behind Japan.
Even then though, more than three-quarters of Russia’s working-age internet users say that they’ve watched a streaming platform in the past month, so the overall story is one of impressive uptake and popularity.
Social entertainment
In light of the findings we’ve explored so far though, the social media motivations data offers something of a contradiction.
Despite the rapid ascent of platforms like TikTok and Kwai, and the overall decline in people’s interest in news, “reading news stories” actually ranks ahead of “finding content (e.g. articles, video)” when it comes to people’s primary reasons for using social media.
Admittedly, “filling spare time” may account for a significant share of TikTok time, but this difference in how people perceive and categorise the content they consume via different channels also has significant implications for content creators and marketers alike.
Furthermore, the relative importance of news in that overall ranking appears to be skewed by the behaviour of older internet users, and “reading news stories” ranks just fifth amongst users aged 16 to 24, whereas “finding content” ranks third.
Something’s missing…
However, closer examination of other datasets in our Digital 2024 Global Overview Reports reveals something of a “gap” in these insights.
Perhaps understandably given the company’s orientation towards marketing customers, GWI’s survey doesn’t ask any overt questions about “adult” content.
However, given its significant appeal, we’d be remiss not to include this kind of content in our analysis of what people are really online in 2024.
Note that Apple has banned “explicit” apps from its iOS app store, and while the rules are a little “murkier” when it comes to Google’s Play app store, many of the top providers of adult content have discontinued support for their mobile apps.
As a result, web activity provides the most representative insights into the world’s consumption of adult content.
Let’s start by seeing how the popularity of this content compares with other content categories.
Note that the data that follows in the section below does not appear with our Digital 2024 reports, although some of the pertinent sites do appear in the included rankings of the world’s 20 most visited websites.
How the world’s web activity breaks down
Data published by Similarweb shows that the 10,000 most visited websites in the world capture more than 60 billion hours of activity each month.
That suggests that web visitors spend a combined, annual total of roughly 83 million years on these top 10,000 domains alone.
Meanwhile, these top 10,000 sites attract a staggering 450 billion combined visits per month, equating to more than 5 trillion visits per year.
Search and social
When it comes to content categories, “Computers, Electronics & Technology” ranks first by share of total traffic, but this is perhaps unsurprising when we consider that this category includes search engines, social media, and email amongst its various subcategories.
On average, visitors spend close to 29 billion hours on sites in this category each month, which equates to a massive 39½ million years of cumulative time each year.
For perspective, that’s almost half (47 percent) of the total time spent across these top 10,000 sites.
However, this category also accounts for the greatest share of sites in the top 10,000, with more than 15 percent of the total.
Entertainment
“Arts & Entertainment” ranks second in Similarweb’s classification by traffic and by time, with these domains accounting for roughly 14 percent of web traffic across the top 10,000 sites.
However, people spend disproportionately longer on these sites than they do on domains in the top 10,000 overall, and domains in this category capture 14½ billion hours of collective visitor activity each month.
For perspective, that means Arts & Entertainment sites account for close to 24 percent of total web time, even though domains in this category account for less than 12 percent of the websites in the top 10,000.
News
Next up, “News & Media” ranks third, with more than 50 billion total visits each month delivering a combined total of 3.8 billion hours of cumulative media consumption.
News & Media sites actually account for the second largest share of domains though, with roughly 14 percent of sites in the top 10,000 belonging to this category.
This imbalance means that news sites only capture 6 percent of the world’s monthly web time, with the average visit to a news domain lasting slightly over 4½ minutes.
Adult
Meanwhile, the fourth-ranked category by time in Similarweb’s classification is “Adult”, which accounts for more than 3 billion hours every month across more than 28 billion monthly visits.
Startlingly, the data suggests that the world’s internet users spend close to 80 percent as much time consuming adult content on the web as they do consuming news content on the web.
And for perspective, the average visit to a domain in the Adult category lasts slightly less than 6½ minutes, compared with the average of 4½ minutes that we just saw for News & Media.
It’s important to stress that these figures don’t include the time spent using mobile apps though, and a significant share of the world’s digital news consumption takes place in native mobile apps.
However, for added context, Adult domains account for more than 820 sites in the top 10,000, equating to more than 8 percent of the total.
Across the top three sites in this category, Similarweb’s data indicates that people visit the same domain roughly 8 times per month, which equates to an average of once every four days.
However, there’s every chance that people visit multiple domains each month – and may choose a different site on different days – so those averages probably don’t tell the complete story about frequency of visitation.
Online shopping
And lastly for this analysis, “Ecommerce & Shopping” sites round out the top five categories by traffic and by total time, with these sites accounting for 2.4 billion hours of web activity per month.
However, this category accounts for less than 6 percent of sites in the top ten, which offers another startling perspective on the relative popularity of sites in the adult category compared with some of our other “favourite” online activities.
The low down
So what does all of this data tell us?
Well, the key takeaway for me is that sites in the Adult category account for more than 6 percent of total visitor traffic across the world’s top 10,000 web domains.
That might not sound like a lot, but the data also shows that people spend a combined total of more than 4 million years of cumulative time each year consuming content on adult sites.
Based on rumour and innuendo, I confess that I expected some of these figures to be higher, but the fact that the adult category ranks fourth at a worldwide level – ahead of online shopping – is still something of a shock.
However, adult content isn’t the world’s only digital vice.
Online gambling
Betting sites don’t make the top 10 in Similarweb’s ranking of domains by web traffic, but our analysis suggests that these sites are disproportionately in certain countries and cultures, so they’re definitely worthy of our attention.
Just for context, Similarweb’s data places the Gambling category twelfth at a worldwide level in terms of total site traffic, and tenth in terms of time spent on-site.
However, its also worth noting that sites in the
It’s worth highlighting that different data sources report quite different findings when it comes to online gambling though, suggesting that this activity may still be regarded as taboo in many places.
As a result, people may not offer “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” when responding to survey questions about their gambling behaviours, and consequently, all of the following numbers should be regarded with an appropriate degree of caution.
General adoption
Across GWI’s 53 survey markets, just 9.4 percent of survey respondents say that they’ve used an online gambling or betting platform in the past month.
Men are significantly more likely to have used these services though, with 11.2 percent of males (overall) saying that they’ve used one of these platforms in the past 30 days, compared with 7.4 percent of women.
Gambling appears to be particularly popular in South Africa, where more than 30 percent of survey respondents told GWI that they’ve used a betting platform in the past 30 days.
Meanwhile, reported use also exceeded 20 percent across Norway, Greece, New Zealand, and Brazil.
South Koreans and Moroccans ranked last, with just 3.7 percent of respondents in each country saying that they’ve used an online gambling platform in the past month.
Hedging our bets
But the figures in some countries were particularly interesting when compared with data from other sources.
For example, just 8 percent of working-age internet users in Ghana told GWI that they used an online gambling service in the past month.
However, data from Semrush shows that a sports betting website ranks amongst the country’s top 10 web domains by total monthly traffic [note that we’ve actively chosen not to name or link to the relevant domain].
A closer look at Semrush’s data suggests that each “unique” visitor to this site returns multiple times per month, and in fact the unique visitors number is relatively low when compared with GWI’s figures and the number of internet users in the country.
But the fact that a gambling site appears in the country’s top 10 web domains is already an interesting finding.
Bet the lot
Meanwhile, data from Statista reveals that online gamblers in Ghana spend a disproportionate share of their income on betting platforms.
It’s essential to note that this data only represents the amount spent by active gamblers – not by the population as a whole.
And given that internet users in the country tend to be financially better off than the population as a whole, richer Ghanaians may significantly over-index amongst the country’s online gamblers, which would skew this data.
However, comparing the figure that Statista reports for the average total amount that Ghana’s online gamblers stake each year with the country’s latest GDP per capita figure from the IMF, data suggests that gamblers risk roughly 12½ percent of GDP per capita on online bets.
And that figure is even higher in Nigeria, with the data suggesting it’s close to 20 percent.
Again, this data only represents the activities of the country’s active online gamblers though – not the population as a whole – and overall, GWI reports that less than 11 percent of Nigeria’s working-age internet users visited an online betting platform in the past 30 days.
But at a worldwide level, online gamblers stake more than USD $500 per gambler, per year, which equates to 4 percent of average GDP per capita.
Searching for luck
But Google Trends also offers some useful insights into the world’s gambling habits, so let’s take a quick look at that data before wrapping up.
Top search queries
At a worldwide level, no overt gambling terms feature in Google’s ranking of the top 20 search queries for 2023.
However, we only need to look one place beyond this ranking to find our first gambling-related query.
Globally, “satta” ranked 21st amongst the queries entered into Google’s search bar in 2023, revealing just how popular this gambling activity is.
For context, “satta” – also known as “matka gambling” – is a form of betting on numbers.
It was originally based on the opening and closing rates of cotton transmitted from the New York Cotton Exchange to the Bombay Cotton Exchange, but has since evolved to encompass a wide variety of different forms.
Despite being illegal in the country, Google Trends data suggests that satta is hugely popular in India, and the country accounts for the vast majority of worldwide searches for satta.
And given that the word was the 21st most common query entered into Google last year, it’s clear just how popular the term is in the country.
Indeed, Google Trends puts satta at the very top of its Google search queries for India in 2023 – ahead of searches relating to cricket, the weather, and even adult content [side note: “sexy” ranked twelfth].
In other words, gambling is the most popular online query in India.
It’s important to stress that a significant share of satta gambling likely takes place offline, especially given that internet penetration has only just passed the halfway mark in India.
However, we see gambling queries rank highly amongst Google searches in many other countries too.
For example, gambling- and lottery-related queries make up a quarter of the top 20 search terms in Barbados, and a whopping 60 percent (12) of the top 20 terms in the Bahamas.
Meanwhile, adding further perspective to the data we explored earlier, betting-related terms account for 1 in 5 of the top 20 queries in Ghana, and the 21st and 22nd queries are also gambling-related.
We see a similar story in Nigeria too, with overt betting queries accounting for 4 of the country’s top 20 Google search terms in 2023.
So, even if people aren’t necessarily gambling online, it seems clear that gambling is a big driver of internet activity around the world.
Dig deeper
These aren’t the only things that people do online of course, but I’m at risk of taking up all of your average 400 minutes of daily internet time here, so I’ll conclude this analysis there.
However, you’ll find loads more insights into the world’s online behaviours in our complete Digital 2024 Global overview report, so click here to explore all 560+ slides of that.
And if you’re looking for more “long reads”, check out our complete collection of Digital 2024 Deep Dives.
Disclosure: Simon Kemp is a brand ambassador for both GWI and data.ai.
Click here to see all of Simon’s articles, read his bio, and connect with him on social media.