As the World Cup gets underway, we can expect people to be spending a large chunk of their time looking away from the football action and sharing their tournament-related experiences across social media.

During the four-week period, England fans in the north-west will spend the most time on social media than any other areas of the country – with the region expected to spend a staggering 1,840 hours communicating and posting photos on social channels between 14 June and 15 July, according to research from digital marketing agency Digital Clarity.

The second-most time spent on social media will be people in the north-east, clocking up 1,132 hours, while London will land at third place.

The survey of 1,500 supporters under 35 from England, Scotland, and Wales, also found that Twitter will be the platform of choice for 41 per cent fans, followed by Instagram at 32 per cent, Facebook at 21 per cent, and all the rest at six per cent.

As neither Scotland or Wales qualified for the tournament, people in the nations expected to spend less time on social media than those in England, clocking up 980 and 875 hours respectively.

“We’d expect England fans with the highest number of players involved to be the most engaged on social media during the World Cup but it was surprising for the north-east, the region with one of the least, ranking highly. However, it is a traditional hotbed of support,” said Reggie James, MD of Digital Clarity.

From a feed point of view, we expect Twitter to be the most used when fans are actually watching games but for Instagram to be the fastest growing network this year and to take the social media lead before and after matches with supporters looking to share unique visuals more and more.”