Five hours is enough time to watch two films, travel from Cardiff to Paris or get through more than half of a standard working day. It is also roughly how long the average adult in Wales now spends online each day.
According to Ofcom’s latest Online Nation report, adults in Wales spent an average of four hours and 50 minutes online each day in May 2025. That was higher than anywhere else in the UK, narrowly ahead of Scotland at four hours and 48 minutes. England, by comparison, averaged four hours and 27 minutes.
The figures cover time spent on personal smartphones, tablets and computers rather than time online for work. And while five hours might sound like a lot, it is easy to see how it adds up.
There is the morning scroll before getting out of bed, messages throughout the day, a bit of online shopping at lunch and perhaps some TikTok, YouTube or gaming in the evening.
For years, the conversation around screen time has focused mainly on how to cut it down. But as so much of daily life has moved online, another question is becoming just as interesting: what are we actually getting back from all those hours?
Our attention is worth money
Every scroll, click and video view has value. Social media platforms, search engines, streaming services, games and shopping apps all compete for the same thing: our attention.
Ofcom found that more than half of the time UK adults spend online is now spent on services owned by just two companies, Alphabet and Meta. Alphabet owns services including Google and YouTube, while Meta owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
For the companies involved, keeping people on a platform can mean more advertising, more data and more chances to make money. For the person holding the phone, the exchange is less obvious.
We get entertainment, information or a way to speak to friends. Often, that is enough. Nobody expects to be paid for watching a funny video or messaging their family.
But as the amount of our lives spent online grows, people may become more aware of what their time is worth.
Younger adults spend even longer online
The national figures become even more striking when you look at younger people.
Across the UK, 18 to 24-year-olds spend an average of six hours and 20 minutes online each day, according to Ofcom. That is almost two hours more than the average UK adult.
Most of our online time now happens on smartphones, too. The average adult uses 41 different apps on their phone each month. That means there is a lot of competition for the spare 10 minutes on the bus, the half-hour before dinner or the hour spent on the sofa in the evening.
Apps have to give people a reason to open them. For years, that reason was often entertainment or convenience. Increasingly, some are adding another incentive: rewards.
Not all screen time looks the same
The idea of getting something back from time spent online is already familiar.
Cashback websites reward people for shopping through them, supermarkets have turned loyalty apps into a normal part of buying groceries, people sell unwanted clothes through apps, complete paid surveys, make videos for social media or pick up freelance work online.
Gaming is another area where the idea is taking hold. Reward-based gaming platforms offer players money or other rewards for completing tasks within games, such as reaching a certain level or finishing a challenge.
One example is Prograd, which connects users with mobile games and other offers that pay rewards when certain targets are completed.
A spokesperson for Prograd said: “People are already spending a lot of their free time on their phones, and gaming is a big part of that for many of them.
“What we’re seeing is that people are becoming more aware of the value of that time. If you’re going to spend an hour playing a game anyway, the idea that you could earn something for reaching certain levels or completing challenges is understandably appealing.
“That doesn’t mean every minute online needs to make you money. Most of us use our phones because we want to relax, speak to friends or be entertained. But there is a growing expectation that some of the platforms competing for our attention should offer something back.”
It is an important distinction. Playing mobile games for rewards is not the same as having another job, nor is it a guaranteed source of income. What it does show is how the relationship between platforms and their users is starting to shift.
Wales is already a nation of heavy digital users
Wales’ high internet use does not appear to be an isolated figure.
Separate Ofcom research found that people in Wales watched an average of five hours and nine minutes of video content at home each day in 2024, again the highest figure among the four UK nations. That included live and recorded television, streaming services and video-sharing platforms.
Put together, the figures paint a picture of a country where digital entertainment already takes up a large part of the day.
That is not necessarily good or bad. Five hours spent online could mean five hours mindlessly scrolling, but it could also include speaking to family, watching a documentary, learning a language, playing a game or selling something you no longer need.
The number of hours only tells part of the story, what we do with them may matter more.
From screen time to time well spent
There has long been pressure to think of screen time as something that needs to be reduced. For parents, that might mean limiting how long children spend on a tablet. For adults, it can mean setting app limits or trying not to check emails before bed.
Those conversations are unlikely to disappear. But simply counting hours makes less sense when phones are used for almost every part of modern life.
An hour spent scrolling through videos is different from an hour learning something new. An evening gaming with friends is different from repeatedly refreshing an app out of habit. And an hour spent doing something that provides a reward may feel different again.
For businesses fighting for a place on our phones, that could become increasingly important. There are only so many hours in a day and only so many apps people will keep opening.
Wales may currently spend more time online than anywhere else in the UK. The next question is not necessarily how we get that number down. It might be whether those hours feel worth it.
