During the first six months of 2015, the average person in the UK spent two hours and 51 minutes actively using the internet per day.

Desktop still accounts for the biggest share (one hour 16 minutes, or 45 per cent of the total) but holds a very narrow lead over smartphones (one hour nine minutes, 40 per cent). Also, if time on tablets (26 minutes, 15 per cent) is taken into account, mobile actually makes up more than half of all online time.

Thats according to a study by UKOM and the IAB, which combined data from a panel of 73,000 people and analytics from thousands of sites and apps to measure active attention time.

“If I’m surfing the internet on my PC but then start using a word document, the internet time is stopped even though the web page is still open,” said IAB chief strategy officer Tim Elkington. “A similar approach is applied on mobile when internet activity is interrupted due to calls or texting.”

Social media is the single most popular activity, accounting for 16.7 per cent time spent online – and on mobile devices specifically, it makes up 21.4 per cent.