Children spending average of nearly three hours online a day, Ofcom data reveals
Children aged between eight and 14 are spending an average of nearly three hours online each day and also turning to their devices late at night, new Ofcom data has shown.
Teenagers aged from 13 to 14 are using their smartphones, tablets or laptops for around four hours a day while eight- and nine-year-olds are online for two hours, and 10- to 12-year-olds for around three hours.
The communications regulator’s latest online nation study, which did not include use of game consoles, also found youngsters were spending a “significant amount” of time online on phones and other devices late into the night, describing such use as “not unusual” in 2025.
Some 15 per cent to 24 per cent of time spent by those aged eight to 14 on YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok and WhatsApp – the four main services used by the age group – happened between 9pm and 5am, with 4 per cent to 10 per cent taking place between 11pm and 5am.
Data collected through the children’s passive online measurement 2025 research revealed about two thirds (64 per cent) of the age group used their smartphone, tablet or computer between 11pm and 5am at least once over a four-week period.
The figures charting how children and adults in the UK experience life online were released the day after Australia’s social media ban for under-16s came into force in a world first, with millions of the country’s teenagers losing access to their accounts.
Ofcom found about nine out of 10 children (91 per cent) aged eight to 17 in the UK were happy with their online activity.
Almost three quarters (72 per cent) of 13- to 17-year-olds say social media platforms help them feel closer to friends while 69 per cent go online to support their wellbeing, with 78 per cent saying the internet helps with schoolwork and more than half (55 per cent) using it to learn new skills.
Ofcom said some of the children spoken to also felt the negative impact of “brain rot” from endlessly scrolling online on smartphones.
It stated: “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.”
Ofsted’s chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver warned last week that social media is “chipping away at attention spans” and promoting disrespectful behaviour, and that schools should be a “sanctuary” for children away from their mobile phones.
Harmful content
Seven out of 10 11- to 17-year-olds saw or heard harmful content online over a four-week period, with almost two-thirds (64 per cent) taking action such as using a dislike button, reporting content, blocking a user or telling an adult, the report also showed.
Almost six out of ten children (58 per cent) aged eight to 17 said they had spent money online in the past month, whether on social media sites, video-sharing platforms or while gaming.
Around a third of children (32 per cent) regretted the in-game purchases they made and 43 per cent regretted those made on social media.
Some 42 per cent were unclear on what they even were buying in-game.
Adults in the UK, meanwhile, spend an average of four and a half hours online a day – an increase of 10 minutes compared with last year, with 18- to 24-year-olds averaging six hours and 20 minutes a day.
Women are spending 26 minutes a day longer online than men, with a daily average of four hours 43 minutes, compared with four hours and 17 minutes for men.
People use an average of 41 apps a month – three more than last year – and WhatsApp, Facebook and Google Maps are the most popular.
Use of generative AI services is also increasing.
Ofcom found that ChatGPT had 1.8 billion UK visits in the first eight months of 2025 – compared with 368 million in the same period in 2024 – a jump of around 1.4 billion.
One in 20 (5 per cent) people over 16 do not, however, have internet access at home in the UK – the same as in 2024, but down from 7 per cent in 2022–23.
