Britons spend over 10 hours a day online

Britons now spend more time online than they do asleep, with the average Briton now spending 10.5 hours a day connected to the web – over two hours longer than the average eight hours night’s sleep – according to a poll of 3,000 UK residents.

Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband provider Hyperoptic, commissioned the research to gain insight into British web habits. The results uncovered that men are spending the most time online, at an average of 11 hours a day, compared to women who are connected to the web for an average of 10 hours day.

Driving this web dependency is the shift towards ‘smart home living’. Over one-in-five Brits (21 per cent) claim they already have a smart home system installed, such as Internet-controlled central heating, energy systems, security, smart appliances, or lighting. A further 27 per cent said that they plan to have a smart system installed at some point in 2016 – meaning that nearly half (48 per cent) of British homes will be ‘smart’ by the end of the year.

However, for many Britons, their broadband speeds aren’t keeping up with the pace of their connected living. Over three quarters (79 per cent) claim that they need faster broadband speeds and nearly a quarter (24 per cent) of survey respondents confess they are regularly arguing with people in their household about their poor broadband performance – with the main bugbear being someone hogging the broadband (49 per cent) and the desire to swap broadband provider (39 per cent).

According to Steve Holford, VP Products, Hyperoptic, Smart Home technologies have been in germination for a decade but in the last year consumer adoption has exploded, which has given rise to an increasing number of connected homes – and even more Internet-reliant Britons.

“As web dependency and usage rises exponentially, it’s understandably going to cause friction in houses where the broadband isn’t fit for task. There is nothing more frustrating than buying the world’s most advanced and functional tech, and then not being able to enjoy it. The key is not to take poor service lying down,” he suggested.

In an attempt to address their broadband woes, 29 per cent of Britons admit they actively try doing things to increase their own broadband speeds – 59 per cent of which try turning off unneeded devices and 42 per cent try moving the router.