Ofcom Finds UK Adults Now Spend Over 4.5 Hours Online Each Day

The telecoms regulator has today published their annual Online Nation 2025 report, which examines how we all use and interact with the internet in the United Kingdom. Overall, it found that 95% of people aged 16+ have access to the internet at home, and the average time spent per day online (excluding work) is 4 hours and 30 minutes (up 10 mins from last year).

Young adults were found to spend the most time online (18-24 = 6 hours and 20 mins a day), while those aged 65+ spend the least time online (3 hours 20 mins). Women also spend more time online than men across all adult age groups. The daily average for women was 4 hours 43 minutes (26 minutes more than men). 

Smartphones typically accounted for the majority of online time for both genders (men: 75%; women: 79%). But Men were more likely to use a computer, dedicating 15% of their online time (38 minutes) to it, compared to 8% for women. Women (14%) spent slightly more time than men (10%) on tablets.

Sadly, this also means that 5% of people aged 16+ do NOT have internet access at home (unchanged from 2024 but down from 7% in 2022–23). Among those aged 16 to 54, home internet access is near universal, with only 1-3% lacking it. The likelihood of being offline increases notably with age: 13% of individuals aged 65 and above remain without home internet, consistent with the previous year, and this rises to 20% among those aged 75 and over.

Most (81%) of those without internet access at home were unlikely or certain not to get access at home in the next 12 months; 9% said they were likely and a further 6% responded that they did not know. Of those aged 65+ without internet access at home, 97% stated they were unlikely to get it in the next 12 months, with a large proportion (81%) saying this was due to a lack of interest or need, while 24% say that someone else can go online for them if necessary (up from 19% in 2024), and 12% state that internet use is too complicated (down from 16%).

In 2025, 18% of people aged 16 and over without home internet access said they were unlikely to get it within the next year due to cost-related reasons (a decrease from 27% in 2023). Of these, the majority (11%) cited the cost of broadband set-up specifically (down from 18% in 2024), while concerns about the monthly broadband cost more than halved, falling from 11% in 2024 to 5% in 2025.

Ofcom’s full report is 115 pages long and goes into a lot more detail, so we’ve summarised some of the other key findings below.

Summary of Key Findings

Online Landscape

Half (51%) of time online is spent on services owned by Alphabet or Meta

YouTube remained the most-used Alphabet-owned service, used by 94% of adult internet users in May 2025. Time spent on YouTube also increased, reaching an average of 51 minutes a day (not including the TV set), compared to 47 minutes in 2024. Google Search was used by 82% of online adults in the month.

The combination of Facebook and Messenger remained the most widely used Meta-owned service used by 93% of online adults in May 2025, averaging 42 minutes a day. WhatsApp continued its upward trend, with 90% of adults using it in May 2025, up from 87% in 2024. Time spent per person per day on WhatsApp also increased, reaching 17 minutes in 2025.

Amazon, Microsoft, and the BBC rounded out the top five most used online services, with their sites and apps visited by 90%, 87%, and 82% of UK online adults in May 2025, respectively. This ranking was consistent across all UK nations. The BBC (including BBC Online, iPlayer and Sounds) was the highest-ranking UK-based organisation.

Smartphone users use on average 41 apps in a month

This has increased by +3 apps since 2024. WhatsApp was used by 92% of UK adult smartphone users in May 2025, up from 91% in 2024. The Facebook app continued a gradual increase, rising to 85% from 84% in 2024 and 81% in 2023. Google Maps consolidated its position as third most-used smartphone app, by 77% of adults in the month.

Online sectors

Google is still the most-used search service, but Gen AI services are changing the sector

Google search with 3 billion monthly UK monthly web searches remains the most used search service and is rolling out AI overviews in search. Around 30% of keyword search queries deliver AI-supported overviews and 53% of UK people say they often see AI summaries. This is largely passive adoption by users who are using their traditional search service and getting AI overviews included. Gen-AI chatbots are also used for search, and ChatGPT had 252m web visits in August 2025

YouTube, Facebook/Messenger and Instagram are the top three social media services

YouTube is in front of all social media platforms in both UK user numbers and time spent, with the average time per day reaching 51 minutes, up from 47 minutes in 2024. Meta-owned platforms are second and third. Facebook/Messenger was visited by users for an average of 43 minutes per day and Instagram for an average of 20 minutes. Use of Facebook/Messenger is slightly weighted toward 35+ users, whereas for YouTube and Instagram there is a strong skew towards younger adults (18-34).

TikTok visitor numbers (56% of online adults in May 2025) have increased, driven by younger internet users (18-34 users: 49 minutes a day). In contrast, X (formerly Twitter) experienced a decline in users, to 39% of online adults in May 2025 from 45% a year earlier.

Among the top 10 social media and VSP services, Pinterest exhibits the strongest female skew, with 69% of its visitors female. X is the only top 10 social media service where men are the predominant visitors (60% male), while Reddit is also weighted towards men in time spent on the service.

WhatsApp is the top messaging app and is growing

Ninety per cent of UK online adults used WhatsApp in 2025. Facebook Messenger remained the second most-used service (58%); however user numbers fell by 7%, continuing its downward trend from 2024.

On average, 74% cent of UK online adults accessed WhatsApp each day in May 2025, up from 64% in May 2024. Facebook Messenger was used by 23% each day, down from 30% in 2024.

Age assurance is impacting the UK porn sector

There are thousands of services used by UK adults. Pornhub remains the largest UK pornography service with 6% share of total visits. The top 10 services together account for around 25% of the overall market.

From 25 July 2025, services providing content that is potentially harmful to children, including pornographic content, have been required to implement Highly Effective Age Assurance (HEAA) measures. All of the top-10 most visited pornography services have implemented age assurance, and after a decline following 25 July, visitor numbers to those sites continue to be monitored. On average, every day, 7.8 million visitors from the UK are accessing adult services who have deployed age assurance.

VPN usage more than doubled in the UK following HEAA becoming mandatory, rising from about 650k daily users before 25 July 2025 and peaking at over 1.4m in mid-August 2025, but has gradually declined to around 900K in November.

Most (59%) UK adults use online intermediaries for their online news

97% of online adults visited a news service in May 2025, spending an average of 10 minutes on these services per day, level with 2024. The BBC remains the most-visited brand with a news service, used by 77% of UK online adults in a month. The BBC and The Sun (45%) were the only online news services with top five reach in each of the UK nations. The Guardian (44%) became the third-highest reaching news service in 2025, up from fifth in 2024.

Six in ten UK adults (59%) said they used some form of online intermediary for their news consumption. Four of the top ten individual news sources are social media platforms (Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and X).

Online Adult Experiences

Adults are less positive about the internet’s societal impact than they were last year

Only 33% felt the internet is good for society in June 2025, down from 40% in June 2024. Also, while 65% of adults believe the personal benefits of being online outweigh the risks in June 2025, this figure has declined steadily from 71% in June 2023. There has also been a small shift in people’s views on the impact of being online on their wellbeing: only 29% felt being online positively affects their mental health (28% disagreed), down from 33% in June 2024.

Fewer adults feel freer to be themselves online than offline (25%, down from 30% in June 2024). Only 35% feel they can share opinions more easily online than offline.

More people say they have seen something upsetting online than last year – but there has been a decline in exposure to potentially harmful content

In June 2025, 37% of adults said they had seen something upsetting online in the past four weeks (up from 31% in June 2024). However, there has been a decline in those saying they have encountered specific types of potentially harmful content from a pre-defined list—66% in June 2025, down from 69% in January 2025 and 68% in June 2024.

The most-encountered potential harms were misinformation (41%), scams/fraud/phishing (34%), offensive language (33%), hateful or discriminatory content (26%) and unwelcome friend and follow requests (25%). While experience of most of the surveyed potential harms has remained stable or declined since last year, encounters with fake/deceptive images or videos rose and is now the sixth-most-experienced (22%, up from 18% in June 2024).

Relatively recently, measures came into place requiring online services to protect users from illegal content (17 March 2025). So far, experiences of encountering content in categories where the content is perceived to be illegal has remained stable or decreased in all surveyed cases: there was a decrease in those who said they encountered it in the past four weeks in seven out of 16 potential harms in this category that we track.

Social media platforms are the most-commonly stated service type where recent potential harms were encountered

59% of those encountering potential harms said that their most recent encounter was on social media. The next most common service types where potential harms were encountered were video-sharing platforms 9%, and email 8% (especially among 55+; 14%).

The platforms most likely to be associated with users most recent encounters with potential online harms were Facebook (29% of most recent potential harms), Instagram (16%) and X (14% falling from 18% in 2024).

Potential online harms were encountered in a variety of ways, most commonly: scrolling through feeds (36% of potential harms), in comment sections (22%) and when watching content selected by the user (11%).

60% took some action as a result of encountering their most recent potential online harm

The most common action was reporting, complaining or flagging of content, undertaken by 35% of users for their most-recently-encountered potential harm (of those, one third said they knew the outcome of their report or complaint). Of the 40% who did nothing, their top reasons were not seeing the potential harm as serious/harmful enough (47%), not seeing the need to do anything (25%) and a belief that it wouldn’t help (21%). One in ten said that they didn’t know what to do (10%).

Women are more likely than men to want more online safety measures

In 2025, almost half (48%) of adult internet users would like to see more safety measures in place on platforms – a sentiment that has been steadily increasing since tracking began in June 2023 (40%). Women (57%) are more likely to agree with this than men (38%).

When asked who is most responsible for ensuring posted content on platforms is appropriate, 37% say there should be more onus on the platform hosting the content and 21% say the onus should be on the individual who posts. With regards to search engines, 42% say these have most responsibility for controlling what is presented in search results, but 24% say individuals should manage settings. When asked to choose between the importance of the internet in supporting free speech versus the importance of sites moderating offensive views, 37% preferred to advocate free speech while 27% were supportive of platforms acting to protect users from offensive views. Women and minority ethnic users were more likely to support moderation of offensive views.

Overall, 61% overall feel confident in their ability to stay safe online, but this was lower among those aged 55+ (54%) and women (55%). Just over half (56%) believe common sense is enough to avoid harm and only 13% say it’s impossible to avoid harmful content.

Children Online

Children aged 8-14 spend an average of nearly 3 hours online each day

This increases to 4 hours among 13-14 year-olds, and is around 2 hours for 8-9-year-olds. It is important to note that this only includes time spent on smartphones, tablets and computers, and does not include games consoles.

Despite not being one of the top-ten services in number of child users, Snapchat (an average of 45 minutes a day spent across all 8-14s) is only just behind YouTube (48 minutes) in the total time that children spent online – combined, Snapchat and YouTube accounted for over half (52% or 1 hour 32 minutes) of the total time spent online among 8-14s.

YouTube and Google search were used by the highest numbers of children, with almost all 8-14-year-olds using them (96% and 95% respectively). Social media sites and messaging services also made it into the top-10 services used by this age group, including Facebook, WhatsApp and TikTok.

A significant amount of the time online spent by children is at night: across four of the main services used by children – YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok and WhatsApp – 15-24% of the time spent for the whole 8-14 age range is between 9pm and 5am and 4-10% of the time spent is late night (11pm-5am), depending on the platform.

Most children are happy with what they do online, though this is lower for older children

Overall, nine in ten (91%) children aged 8-17 say they are happy with the things that they do online. Younger children aged 8-9 were more likely than older children to be happy with their online activity. While there were no differences overall between boys and girls (mostly/always happy combined), boys were more likely than girls to ‘always’ be happy (47% vs 40%).

Eight in ten (81%) children aged 8-17 said they were happy that the things they see online are ‘appropriate for their age’; however, only three in ten (31%) said they were ‘always’ happy about this. Younger children (aged 8-9) were more likely to be happy that what they see online is appropriate for their age, than those aged 13-15 (84% vs 79%). This is perhaps a reflection of this teenage group using social media more (55% of 3-12s are reported to use social media apps compared to 96% of 13-17s) and our research shows this is where children are more likely to be exposed to inappropriate content for their age.

Over half (56%) of children felt that being online had a ‘mostly’ good effect on how they feel about themselves. A small minority (3%) felt it had a ‘mostly’ bad effect, while a third (34%) felt it had a bit of both good and bad.

Lower levels of happiness with online activities and likelihood of feeling good about themselves, corresponded for some groups with higher exposure to content harmful to children, including among children with a health condition and children aged 13+ who identified as Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Pansexual or Queer. This may indicate exposure plays a role in these differences.

Many children use the online world to aid their wellbeing

Our research asked children aged 13-17 who go online whether they use websites, apps or other online services to help with various aspects of their wellbeing, and overall 69% said they did so. The most likely reasons were to help them relax (45%) or improve their mood (32%). Ofcom’s research into the use of Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR)1 and self-improvement content among children aged 11-17 found that these types of content are also being used to help children relax. While three-quarters said they had used ASMR or self-improvement content in general, more than half (53%) said they used ASMR in particular to help them relax. However, a similar proportion (52%) who used ASMR disliked at least one thing about it (such as disgusting sounds and images, and inappropriate language or dress). This was higher still among those who used self-improvement content, with 70% saying they disliked at least one thing about it (such as body shaming and toxic messaging).

Nearly all children say that being online helps them to learn about the world, develop new skills and build social connections

Aiding their education is one area where children feel the internet benefits them. Nearly eight in ten (78%) of 13-17s say the internet helps with their schoolwork. And our device tracking showed that 76% of 8-14s visited an education-related service in a month. When surveyed, more than half (55%) of 13-17-year-olds selected ‘to learn a new skill’ and 46% ‘to develop creative skills’ as a benefit of being online.

Parents agree there are beneficial aspects to their child being online – in particular, helping with schoolwork (72%), finding information about personal issues (35%) and hearing about the news (31%).

Two-thirds (65%) of 13-17s see the online world as beneficial in building and maintaining their friendships, especially among girls (71% compared to 60% of boys). Social media and messaging apps play a big role, as 72% of 13-17s who use them agree that it helps them feel closer to their friends.

But some children identify the negative impact of endlessly scrolling online, and it leading to ‘brain-rot’

Some of the children we spoke in our qualitative Children’s Media Lives research reflected on the negative impact they experienced when they had spent a long time on their device (typically a smartphone). The term ‘brain rot’ was used by some children to describe both a genre of content and the feeling that spending hours on their devices left them with. Brain rot content is characterised by its frenetic, choppy, and nonsensical nature, leaving viewers feeling overstimulated and sometimes disoriented. Some of the children expressed negative feelings associated with spending excessive time online and engaging with this type of content.

Seven in ten secondary school age children have seen harmful content online; the most likely being bullying and hate content

The Online Safety Act distinguishes between Primary Priority Content (PPC) which is content that all children should be prevented from seeing and Priority Content (PC), which is content that children should be protected from seeing dependent on age. At the time of fieldwork (March-April 2025), seven in ten 11-17 year olds had seen or heard some form of PPC or PC in the last four weeks. Nearly all had seen some form of PC2 and 30% reported having seen or heard PPC3. This research was conducted before Ofcom’s Protection of Children (PoC) Codes of Practice came into force in July 2025. It therefore provides a baseline measure for the proportion of children saying they have been exposed to content harmful to children and is not indicative of the impact of the PoC codes measures. We will provide an update in May 2026.

Of the PPC/PC harms encountered, content related to bullying was the most likely to be seen (by 58% of 11-17s), 49% saw content related to hate, and 30% said they saw content encouraging them to do dangerous stunts or challenges and 28% saw content related to eating/drinking/inhaling harmful substances.

Two thirds of children took some form of action after seeing content harmful to children

Overall, 64% of 11–17-year-olds took some form of action after encountering harmful content online. This included both making use of functionalities on the service and taking action offline. Fifteen percent used negative sentiment tools (such as the ‘Dislike’ button), around one in 10 children chose to report the content (11%), blocked the person who put it up or sent it to them (10%), and told a grown up about their experience (10%). However, the most common response was to ignore the content (30%).

Many children regret purchases they make online

Almost six in ten (58%) children aged 8-17 said they had spent money online in the past month, whether on social media sites, video-sharing platforms, or while they were gaming. However, a third (32%) of them regretted purchases made in-game, and 43% regretted purchases made on social media. Additionally, 42% found it unclear what they were buying in games. There are different influences or persuasive features within these services that encourage children to spend including character customisation (30%), adverts (27%), recommendations from friends or family (23%) and influencer content (22%).