A study has revealed that consumers now spend more of their time using digital media than they do with more traditional formats.

The GlobalWebIndex report, titled ‘Digital 2013 – A Global Analysis of How Consumers Spend Their Media Time’, revealed that digital media formats, such as mobile internet and social networks, now account for 57% of everyday media usage across the world.

According to the figures, the average consumer now spends 10.7 hours each day with some form of media – 5.6 hours of which is with digital. The popularity of social media has also risen, taking up 48% of this usage.

While 5.6 hours is the average figure, people in some countries are thought to use digital media even more frequently. The use of devices such as PCs, mobile phones and tablets takes up 7.3 hours of the average day in the UAE and 6.1 hours in China.

In mature web markets, like Germany, the Netherlands, the U.S. and the UK, offline formats, such as TV, newspapers and radio, still account for the majority of consumer media time. The influx of web-ready devices such as smartphones, tablets and smart TVs, however, is likely to test this.

Interestingly, the report, which compiled responses from 32,000 people, also revealed news to be the most popular form of online content, especially in emerging markets like Thailand, Vietnam, Brazil and Indonesia.

Many businesses use news articles to provide quality content for their target audiences. Providing up-to-date, relevant news can be a great way to ensure a website is kept fresh and interesting for potential customers. If a web user accesses a site and sees that it hasn’t been updated in two months, they’re unlikely to remain interested and will probably search elsewhere for the product or service they’re looking for.

Graeme Parton

Graeme has experience creating content for online sources and for the radio, and at university he studied Multimedia Journalism.