According to new research by NordVPN, Americans spend 95% (15 hours) of their waking hours attached to their devices.
NordVPN asked people located in the US to estimate how many hours they spend on the internet both for personal and professional purposes on a daily basis.
It turns out that the average American dedicates 3 hours and 16 minutes to internet surfing while working and spends additional 5 hours online once work is finished. The typical American spends 10 hours in front of the screen on a regular shift. All in all, this sums up to 15 hours of screen time daily.
“Adults across the world give themselves no time to disconnect. Despite unplugging from work-related tasks, people remain hanging on their devices anyway,” says Daniel Markuson, digital privacy expert at NordVPN.
As a result, 73% percent of professionals surveyed back in April via TechRepublic said they are burned out. That’s up from 61% in mid-February.
Women on both sides of the pond demonstrate a slightly lower engagement with their devices, spending around 2 hours less than men.
| Personal | Work | ||
| Regular day | ALL | 5:01 | 3:16 |
| Women | 4:35 | 2:44 | |
| Men | 5:22 | 3:50 | |
| Weekend | ALL | 6:21 | 2:43 |
| Women | 6:02 | 2:16 | |
| Men | 6:40 | 3:22 |
Time spent on the internet in the US, August 2020.
Weekends leaning on the device
The time spent exclusively online is 8 hours on a regular day. However, the sessions extend by 1 hour on weekends.
“Americans still spend almost the same amount of time on work-related web surfing on Saturdays and Sundays despite being officially off. This gives them no chance to disconnect and leads to burnout,” says the digital privacy expert.
Browsing unprotected
With so much time spent online, people fail to equip themselves with at least a minimum level of protection. 61% of all respondents in the US do not use a VPN for a basic protection of their browsing.
Unsurprisingly, citizens of Western countries are more prone to falling victim to cybercrime, as the Cyber Risk Index by NordVPN suggests.
“Bad actors haven’t let the opportunity slip away. The most popular type of email scams went up by 400%. Scammers lure people into creative traps, from telling victims they contracted coronavirus to convincing them to buy puppies. Alerts of data breaches and customer data leaks have become a daily routine,” says Daniel Markuson.
The digital privacy expert notes that, to avoid falling victim to a cyberattack, cyber hygiene must be considered essential rather than optional. Unique passwords for each account, VPN protection that is always on, and general cautiousness about email messages is the least users should be doing.
NordVPN’s survey of the adult population (1,000 respondents) in the US was carried out in August 2020.