Facebook Now A Bit Less Sticky

Facebook’s move last year to discourage passive consumption of content, especially videos, has impacted engagement. Average daily time spent on the platform by US adult users fell by 3 minutes in 2018.

And that time will remain unchanged this year, per the latest eMarketer forecast on US time spent with media. In fact, eMarketer has reduced its forecast for Facebook compared with the previous figures released in Q3 2018.

This year, US adult Facebook users will spend an average of 38 minutes per day on the platform (on all devices), down 2 minutes from our previous forecast. In 2020, average daily time will drop to 37 minutes.

“Facebook’s continued loss of younger adult users, along with its focus on downranking clickbait posts and videos in favor of those that create ‘time well spent,’ resulted in less daily time spent on the platform in 2018 than we had previously expected,” eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson said.

Meanwhile, average daily usage of Instagram is seen reaching 27 minutes this year among U.S. adult users, climbing by one minute each year through 2021.