UK Consumers’ Online Use Doubled in Past Decade, Says Ofcom

Consumers in the U.K. are spending at least twice as much time online as they were 10 years ago, fueled by increasing use of tablets and smartphones, U.K. regulator Ofcom said Monday in its annual report on media use and attitudes. Ofcom researchers canvassed 1,890 consumers 16 and older and found they claimed to spend on average more than 20 hours and 30 minutes online in a given week last year, it said. That’s more than double the nine hours and 54 minutes of average weekly time online in 2005, it said. The biggest increase in online use came among those 16-24 years old, almost tripling from 10 hours and 24 minutes per week in 2005 to 27 hours and 36 minutes by the end of 2014, it said. “Increasing take-up of tablets and smartphones is boosting time spent online.” Though 5 percent of adults reported using a tablet to go online in 2010, that increased to 39 percent in 2014, Ofcom said. Using a smartphone also has more than doubled in five years, from 30 percent of adults in 2010 to 66 percent in 2014, it said. “Overall, the proportion of adults using the internet has risen by half” in the past decade, from six in every 10 in 2005 to almost nine in 10 today, it said.