Despite ongoing debates about their impact on younger, always-online generations, short videos remain the most-watched online content, beating all other video formats. Moreover, the time internet users spend watching them daily and weekly has increased significantly, reaching record highs.
According to data presented by Jemlit.com, the average internet user now spends six hours and 39 minutes watching shorts weekly, the equivalent of two full weeks a year.
Who Spends the Most Time Watching Shorts? Brazil, the Philippines, and Kenya Close to a Month Per Year, Japan Only Four Days
The rise of short-form videos, first popularized by TikTok and later adopted by YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels, has been nothing short of remarkable. Short videos are fast and fun and their catchy format has quickly turned them into a marketing goldmine, with brands spending billions on this type of advertising each year. But besides grabbing attention, they also make it harder to focus, lead to shallow scrolling, and can easily become addictive. Still, despite all the downsides, people keep spending a shocking amount of time watching them.
According to the latest Data Reportal Digital Global Overview Report, internet users now spend an average of six hours and 39 minutes weekly watching shorts. While that may not sound alarming at first, this figure translates into nearly two full weeks per year of watching short videos and doing nothing else. What`s even more worrying is that this is the global average, with more than one-third of all surveyed countries spending much more time.
Kenyans, Filipinos, and Brazilians top the list, averaging between 10 and 13 hours per week, equivalent to nearly a full month a year. Nigerians, South Africans, Mexicans, and Arabs spend close to 20 days each year watching shorts and doing nothing else, while Vietnamese and Thais spend close to half a month. India and China are just above the global average, while Western countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, France, and Germany, are all below it, averaging around eight full days per year. At the other end of the list, the Japanese are the least addicted to short videos, spending less than two hours weekly and only four and a half days a year watching them.
People Spend 1.5 Hours More Per Week Watching Shorts than Long Videos
The widespread popularity of short videos is even more striking when compared to the weekly watch time of longer video formats available on social media and YouTube. Shockingly, shorts now beat long videos by an hour and a half of extra weekly watch time.
According to Data Reportal, internet users spend an average of four hours and 51 minutes per week watching long videos, and around 60% of all surveyed countries are even below that average. The top two countries, Kenya and the Philippines, spend an average of around nine hours per week, which is two to three hours less than the time they spend watching shorts. The same trend also appears across Western countries, where users spend roughly an hour less on long videos than on shorts.