Climate change, family and misinformation all make Brits’ list of priorities in the latest TouchPoints data from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA).
The report also found that British people spend an average of 7 hours 24 minutes a day on a screen, with young people spending over 2.5 hours per day on social media in specific. Despite this, the report still supports the narrative that people are reducing their screentime.
Spending time with family is one reason people may be cutting screen time, with all generations agreeing that they enjoy family time.
Part of the reason for this tension is that 34% of all media consumption now happens on smartphones (of which 47% is made up of social media/messaging). With screens no longer communal, increasingly spending time with others can mean putting the tech away.
Another reason people might be putting down their devices is that they wish to reduce energy use: 39.1% of all adults said that they are making changes to reduce their carbon footprint.
One of the biggest concerns, however, is misinformation online. 78.7% of all adults are worried about the veracity of content on platforms, with the least concerned group being 35- to 54-year-olds, at 77.2%.
Dan Flynn, director of media research at IPA, argued that this high level of concern paired with the figures showing nearly three-quarters of adults use social media in a typical week (almost nine out of 10 16- to 34-year-olds) shows the ‘hold and power’ that social media has over us.
This presents a potential dilemma for advertisers as consumers increasingly distrust the environment they engage with the most. The data shows that the top-five media properties watched by 16- to 34-year-olds are all social media sites, but the same dataset shows increasing distrust and dissatisfaction with those sites. Social media pages are definitely somewhere marketers can find young people’s eyes, but the low-trust environment can have a serious impact on the effectiveness of social campaigns.
Despite these concerns, the data did show that Brits have a somewhat positive outlook: 59.6% say they are satisfied with their lives right now, and 60.2% say they are able to manage on their current income. Both of these figures are lower amongst 16- to 34-year-olds, with 53.6% of younger people satisfied with their lives and 48% coping on their income.
The general rate of dissatisfaction among younger people could well be related to their screen use — but, crucially, young Brits do not appear to be entirely anti-technology: 51.3% of this generation believe that AI has the potential to positively transform lives, compared with just 35.8% of over-55s. This suggests their frustration is not with digital advancement as a whole, but specifically with the current state of the social media landscape.
The new report from the IPA marks the 20 years since the IPA published its first TouchPoints data. The methodology comprises surveys of half-hour slots of audience behaviour and records what consumers are doing, who they are with and how they feel.
