Newswise: One in four internet users are overwhelmed by the clutter in their browser. “Five billion people spend almost half of their waking hours online. According to a new study from Aalto University, browser clutter is a serious problem for one in four of them. The results will be presented on April 27 at CHI 2023, the leading conference for human-computer interaction research.”
Tubefilter: An annual study of kids’ habits found that they average 107 minutes per day on TikTok. “If the U.S. government follows through on its proposal to ban TikTok, it will have a lot of angry teens on its hands. A recent survey published by parental control service Qustodio suggests that young consumers are spending more time on TikTok than ever before. According to the report, the average TikTok user between the ages of 4 and 18 spent 107 minutes per day on the app in 2022.”
BuzzFeed News: Twitter Users Are Down 9% in the US, A New Survey Shows. “The number of people using Twitter in the US has decreased almost 9% since Elon Musk took over, according to a recent study. In October 2022, just before Musk took ownership, the study found, 32.4% of Americans were using Twitter. In December and January, that figure had dropped to 29.5%.”
Dave Karpf: Twitter Tumbleweed Watch. “I just want to share some back-of-the-envelope math. I’m increasingly convinced that Twitter (or at least the network neighborhoods that comprise my Twitter experience) is becoming a ghost town. Here’s why.”
The Hill: Americans more inclined to browse social media than post their own content: Gallup . “Although YouTube is the most popular platform that Americans said they used, only 11 percent of those who have accounts said they posted their own content. Twitter… is one of the least popular platforms among Americans, with about 39 percent of Americans saying they use the platform but only 11 percent saying they frequently post their own content.”
Pew (PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW!): How parents’ views of their kids’ screen time, social media use changed during COVID-19. “In April 2021, the Center followed up with many of the same parents we surveyed in March 2020 to check in on their children’s use of technology and social media during the pandemic. This second survey focused on parents who had a kid age 11 or younger in 2020, and it was fielded at a time when some schools were temporarily reverting to virtual learning and vaccines were not yet approved for children under 12. Below, we take a closer look at what these parents told us about their young child, including how the experiences they reported in 2021 compared with their responses from 2020.”
PsyPost: Longitudinal study reveals how using the internet as a form of escape can end in increased depressive symptoms . “New research suggests that using the internet as an escape from worry may be harmless in the short term, but can lead to emotional issues down the line. The study found that people with a greater tendency to use the internet as a distraction had higher average levels of problematic internet use and depression. The findings were published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior.”
Tubefilter: New data shows TikTok adoption gaining on YouTube, especially among Gen Z. “YouTube has been the undisputed top dog in the online video industry for a decade and a half, but TikTok is cultivating an astonishing user base of its own. According to new data from eMarketer, TikTok’s market share is advancing at a faster rate than YouTube among Gen Z consumers.”
9to5 Google: Google Maps usage in Ukraine triples as Docs use declines over the past two days. “Since 2010, Google has published Transparency Reports to demonstrate ‘how the policies and actions of governments and corporations affect privacy, security, and access to information online.’ One such report shows the impact the war in Ukraine is having on how people use Google products, including Maps.”
Medical Xpress: Parents underestimate teens’ social media use during pandemic. “Parents’ and adolescents’ estimates of adolescent screen use during the first year of the pandemic differed significantly, according to a new study published in Academic Pediatrics. While parents estimated their children spent more total time using screens recreationally than their kids estimated, parents underestimated the amount of time spent specifically on social media and multi-player video games (versus texting, video chats, and other uses).”
PC Magazine: We Read Twitter for Entertainment, Trust It for News (Unless We Vote Republican). “Two new studies from the Pew Research Center on American use of Twitter find both a surprising level of trust in that social platform and a partisan divide in views about it. They also suggest Twitter’s privacy interfaces need serious work. These studies released Monday—The Behaviors and Attitudes of US Adults on Twitter and News on Twitter: Consumed by Most Users and Trusted by Many—shed new light on the social platform that continues to draw far more debate than you might expect for a service only used by 23% of Americans, per a Pew study released in May.”
PC Magazine: Americans Spend Nearly 60 Billion Hours a Year on Google. “Collectively, Americans spent 57.3 billion hours on Google per year. Its video equivalent, YouTube, comes in second with a combined 142.6 billion hours, which is how much time it can feel like you’ve spent there when you go down a video rabbit hole.”
Mashable: What to expect when you’re expecting 8 billion internet users. “As I wrote in my previous story in this series, the world may add up to 3 billion more internet users in the next decade or so. The global population is growing fast, and demographers believe it will cross the 8 billion mark around 2023. Internet access is growing faster, and is on course to hit 8 billion users around 2033. Given our recent history, you’d be forgiven for feeling a bit queasy about what could happen when the echo chamber has grown to the size of the entire Earth.”
Tubefilter: More Than 250 Hours Of YouTube Content Are Watched On TV Screens Every Single Day. For some reason the headline has omitted the word “million.” I mean, 250 hours is just me watching old episodes of Match Game. “YouTube’s NewFronts presentation (aka YouTube Brandcast) saw the platform drop tons of news about its original programming, including partnerships with top creators. But YouTube also took the opportunity to reaffirm it has the biggest slice of the ad-supported over-the-top pie — as in, it has the highest share in reach and watch time. What’s new about its position in the market, however, is that a lot of that watch time is coming from television screens. YouTube revealed that more than 250 hours of content are watched on TV screens every single day, up from 180 million hours in June 2018.”
Search Engine Land: Younger users rely on snippets and knowledge panel, often don’t click, survey says. “A new consumer survey about Google SERP engagement, from Path Interactive , finds organic search results still dominate user attention but younger searchers are more inclined to look to content in Featured Snippets and the Knowledge Panel without clicking through to third-party sites. This phenomenon has been dubbed ‘no-click’ search results and is a worrying trend for many publishers.”
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