A survey of UK adults in 2025: on average, they spend 4.5 hours per day online, up 10 minutes on 2024, and 50%+ of time is on Google- and Meta-owned services
## Half of all time online [by people in the UK] is now spent on Alphabet and Meta-owned services — Wow. What a stark, depressing, picture. — ## Adults now spend an average of four and a half hours online a day — How are they wasting the other 19.5 hours?! …
Context & Ripple Effects
Ofcom's prior measurement had already shown daily online use rising sharply to four hours and 20 minutes in 2024. This update extends that trajectory while identifying where a majority of that attention is concentrated.
The finding matters alongside the internet's move ahead of TV as a UK news source: a small set of platform owners increasingly sits between users and both communications and information.
First-order effects
- Alphabet and Meta gain clearer evidence of their central position in UK consumers' daily online routines, strengthening the value of their distribution and advertising reach.
- Publishers, app developers, and smaller platforms compete for the remaining share of users' online time, not merely for incremental audience growth.
Second-order effects
- Advertisers and media buyers are likely to keep treating Google and Meta as essential channels for UK reach, raising the pressure on rivals to demonstrate distinct audiences or outcomes.
- As online use displaces legacy media attention, the platforms' role in discovery becomes more consequential for news and other content providers.
Third-order effects
- If attention continues to consolidate, competition and media-policy debates will increasingly turn on control of user attention and distribution rather than on time spent online alone.
- The pattern could make a more selective social audience—later reflected in falling rates of active posting and sharing—more valuable to platforms that can retain passive consumption at scale.
The trend: UK digital consumption is becoming more concentrated around a few platform ecosystems even as the broader online audience grows.