Study finds Singaporeans spend a third of our lives online

A new survey by virtual private network (VPN) provider NordVPN revealed that Singaporeans spent, on average, 27 years and one day, or a third of their lives online. This is slightly more than the global average of 25 years, 10 months, and 21 days.

In fact, in Asia, both the Koreans and Taiwanese spent more time at 34 years and 33 years respectively. Rather surprisingly, Japan's average time online was only 11 years, four months, and 13 days, which was the lowest in the world.

According to the survey, during a typical week, Singaporeans spend a bit more than 54 hours using the internet, with 18 hours spent working, seven hours spent watching videos on platforms like YouTube, six hours spent streaming TV shows and films on media streaming platforms, five hours on social media channels, three hours listening to music, two hours for online shopping, two hours making video calls, and one hour playing games such as Fortnite or Minecraft.

Recognising their online habits, Daniel Markuson, a digital privacy expert at NordVPN said that 40 per cent of Singaporeans were willing to share their sensitive information for Internet access. Among the most publicly disclosed details are full names (68.4 per cent), date of birth (63.5 per cent), full address (53.3 per cent), relationship status (35.7 per cent), and job title (35.5 per cent) as well as likes and dislikes (18.4 per cent) and bank details (16.3 per cent), the survey found.

But that isn’t to say that Singaporeans don’t acknowledge the risks of having their information online. Markuson added that Singaporeans were willing to give up certain things to have our information permanently deleted from the Internet. The most common were drinking alcohol (31.5 per cent), playing video games (28.8 per cent), or playing sports (22.4 per cent).

ALSO READ: How to protect my child on the internet: 5 tips to keep your child safe

This article was first published in Hardware Zone.