This is the first of five articles from the McKinsey iConsumer survey, which tracks changing consumer behavior for different digital experiences.
Look around you on the subway, in the park, even behind the steering wheel—and it might seem that people everywhere, almost all the time, are glued to their technology— nose to screen, fingers a blur of tapping.
McKinsey decided to test such subjective observations with rigorous empirical analysis. Every year since 2008, we have conducted a wide-ranging survey of at least 5,000 Internet consumers (aged 15-64) in selected countries. This body of research, which is among the most extensive available on the subject, allows us to track changing digital habits and to anticipate future directions.
In the following article, we discuss our findings about how people spend their tech time. In subsequent ones, to be posted daily, we will dig a little deeper into the specifics, looking at patterns in phone usage, online shopping, video and the surprising state of Japan.
Time matters
What do the US, Spain and Korea have in common? Not much, at first blush. But to a startling degree, they share similar behavior when it comes to how they use their personal computers. Not only do they spend by far the most time attached to their PCs—more than five hours a day—but what they do online is also comparable. For example, the Internet users surveyed showed broad similarities in how much time they spend watching TV, watching video, downloading music and online streaming.
There are differences, too, of course. Americans, by far, spend the most time playing games (51 minutes), while the Koreans are second and the Spaniards a distant fourth, behind China (33 minutes). Moreover, while users in the US and Korea spend a similar amount of time on social networks (37 and 27 minutes, respectively), that is far behind the Spaniards And the Koreans are much more avid online shoppers, spending half an hour a day browsing through the Internet malls.
To see the rest of this report, download the PDF.