YouGov Global Profiles: What leisure and entertainment activities are people doing on their phones?

YouGov Global Profiles: What leisure and entertainment activities are people doing on their phones?

Christien Pheby - April 12th, 2024

These days, we have so much stuff on our phones. Music, apps, games, obviously. Medieval games, obviously. Obviously, jousting games. People have no problem being on their phones for hours and hours. But if these devices are so entertaining, how are the public using them to amuse themselves? 

Data from YouGov Global Profiles – taken from 48 international markets – can reveal the top entertainment activities around the world. The most popular activity, on average, is watching videos, which nearly three in five (57%) consumers reported doing on an at least daily basis.

The next most popular options are reading the news (48%) and online shopping (47%), followed by playing games (39%) and watching TV (23%). One in five report reading books (22%), with one in six saying they listen to the radio on their phones (15%), and 13% saying they use their phone for sports tracking. 

There are some variations depending on the market. For instance, people in APAC are a little more likely to use their phone for online shopping (53%), while those in the Americas (38%) and Europe (37%) are a little less likely. People in Europe (29%) and MENA (32%) are less likely to report playing games than consumers in the Americas (36%) or APAC (42%). 

Similarly, reading books on one’s phone is a more common practice among those residing in APAC (26%), and a less common practice in the Americas (18%) and particularly Europe (10%). 

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Methodology 

YouGov Global Profiles is a globally consistent audience dataset with 1000+ questions across 48 markets. The data is based on continuously collected data from adults aged 16+ years in China and 18+ years in other markets. The sample sizes for YouGov Global Profiles will fluctuate over time, however the minimum sample size is always c.1000. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from India and UAE, which use urban representative samples, and China, Egypt, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Philippines, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam, which use online representative samples. Learn more about Global Profiles.