In 2022, average daily social media time spent by Internet users around the world is estimated to be 147 minutes. That’s up from 145 minutes the year before. Social media is used by Americans for approximately two hours and three minutes per day.

Although it is commonly said that money is time, the real question is what Americans value their time.

Frontier.com conducted a survey and found that 67.2 percent paid less than $100 per monthly for Internet service. However, 50.3 percent valued their Internet service at over $100 each month. The survey also revealed that only 5.1 percent reported they were willing to pay more for targeted ads. However, 28.1 percent claimed that they would spend over $50 per month to get rid of their social media ads.

Respondents most desired social media addition was improved data privacy (61.4%)

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Survey respondents rated targeted ads as irritating (45.8%), useful (42.1%) and entertaining (38.8%). Evidently, ads don’t seem to be a distraction from the social media experience.

Additionally, 20.9 percent of respondents believed that targeted ads enhance their social media experience (compared to 17.9 percent). This group also felt that targeted ads were a negative influence on their user experience. They had an average purchase of 4.8 via targeted ads in the three previous months.

Baby boomers – the generation that grew up with TV – seemed more likely to be annoyed by ads than younger Americans. 56.6% of Boomers had negative opinions about targeted advertising, while only 37.6% of Gen Zers did.

Buy More

According to the survey, Snapchat (6) and Instagram (5.2), were the three top platforms for the most average purchases over the past three months. TikTok (4.8) was also found. Additionally, the survey revealed that YouTube (32.1%), Facebook (28.5 percent) and Instagram (33.1 percent) were the platforms most willing to pay for. Instagram made interestingly the highest average purchase on all three of these platforms.

Adi Sachdeva from Frontier, a creative agency, stated that “data privacy” was one of our most interesting findings. This is followed by greater security and transparency.

Sachdeva said that security concerns were also a top-rated addition to subscription services. Sachdeva said that large-scale privacy breaches left much to be desired. Companies must recognize and maximize privacy and security features in order to keep users.