People now spend more time online than they do with traditional forms of content – with mobile usage in China exceeding TV, radio and print.

Global digital media use, which includes social media and mobile web, now accounts for 57 per cent of daily media time. Online exceeds offline in 23 out of the 31 major markets surveyed in the GlobalWebIndex.

Consumers  now spend an average of 10 hours and 40 minutes a day with all forms of media – with more than five and a half hours of that on digital.

The Middle East and Asia use mobile most prolifically, both in terms of hours spent on their handsets and as a share of their daily media time. Saudi Arabians spend the most time on mobile – more than two hours and 10 minutes  every day – followed by the UAE and Thailand, both at almost two hours.

China is the only country where mobile time exceeds that of TV – with 18 per cent of time spent using smartphones, compared to 14 per cent in front of the box. 46 per cent of their time is spent online. People in Saudi Arabia also spend 18 per cent of their media time using mobile, with Hong Kong and the UAE at 17 per cent.

Total online time, which includes PC, tablet and mobile is the highest in the UAE, at 7 hours and 20 minutes on average, followed by China at just over six hours. Consumers in Argentina, Malaysia and Thailand spend most time across both traditional and digital media – with Argentines topping the list of media consumers, exceeding 13 hours every day.

Offline media still accounts for the majority of time spent in mature internet markets like the Netherlands, Germany, the UK and US. Japanese and South Korean people spend the least time consuming media – seven and a half in Japan and more than eight and a half hours per day in South Korea – but the majority of time spent in both countries is digital.

News is the most digitised form of content.