People spending less time on social media

Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, Snapchat, etc are must-have apps for all our phones, but a new study from marketing intelligence firm Similar Web has found that people are now spending much less time on social media apps.

The study, which compares daily usage pattern of Android users on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat, between January and March 2016, with the same period in 2015, revealed that people across U.S, UK, Germany, Spain, Australia, India, South Africa, Brazil and Spain, have reduced the time spent on these social media apps.

The usage on Instagram declined by 23.7 percent year-on-year, while for Twitter it was down by 23.4 percent. Snapchat's usage on mobile app dropped by 15.7 percent, followed by Facebook, which saw a decline of 8 percent in usage, the study states.

The usage declined most significantly in U.S., which is typically social media's most lucrative market, where Instagram use was down 36.2 percent, Twitter was down 27.9 percent, Snapchat was down 19.2 percent and Facebook fell 6.7 percent. However, the usage pattern in U.S. is still the highest with about 45 minutes and 29 seconds of time spent on Facebook every day, on an average. While Facebook users in India used the app the least, spending 22 minutes and 59 seconds daily, on average.

Americans are also the biggest users of Snapchat, spending 18 minutes and 43 seconds daily, followed by the French who spend 16 minutes and 7 seconds, and then the British with 15 minutes and 27 seconds.

Across all four apps, users spent the least time using Twitter. For the microblogging site, Spanish users are the most lucrative, who spend over 13 minutes daily on the mobile app.

Even the app installations of social media, among Android users, were down nine percent year-on-year. But comparatively, installation of messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Messenger increased 15 percent and two percent respectively. Both Snapchat and Instagram saw a rise in installs in certain countries. Snapchat installs increased in Germany, Spain, and India, with Brazil being the most pronounced at 22 percent.