Young people use their cell phones more than five hours a day

More than five hours - that's how long Swiss teenagers spend on their cell phones every day. Little has changed in the last three years. Young people still spend the majority of their free time in front of a screen - not including devices such as laptops, tablets or TVs.

On average, the study participants spend just under 16 hours a week on social media. The top app is the meta-app Instagram, which is used most intensively by more than a third of the participants. Tiktok follows in second place, as it did in 2021. Chatting represents an important function of social media, with Snapchat leading the way here. Email, on the other hand, is practically no longer important for communication among young people.

Two and a half hours of gaming apps

However, young people have made gains when it comes to gaming on their smartphones. According to the current figures, they spend two and a half hours on gaming apps. In contrast to 2021, that's about an hour longer. Basically, Generation Z is available almost always and everywhere on digital channels.

Based on screenshots of their actual cell phone usage statistics of participants aged 13 to 23, Xeit evaluated screen time and real smartphone usage. The screenshots of usage activities regularly sent in by the study participants each show the average weekly screen time and usage time of various apps, over a total period of four weeks. A total of 356 adolescents took part, 129 of whom were female, 219 male and 8 diverse.