Data
Phones and screens in Europe: the numbers.
How many Europeans are online every day, how many use a smartphone, how long teenagers spend on screens, and what people want done about it. Every figure here comes from an official statistics office, an EU survey or the OECD, with its date and its limits.
In short. In 2025, 90% of people aged 16 to 74 in the EU were online every day, up from 77% in 2019, and 90% went online with a smartphone. Two in three used social networks; nine in ten of those aged 16 to 24. EU teenagers report 4.5 hours of screen time on a school day and 6.1 hours on a weekend day. And nearly two in three Europeans want EU rules that limit children’s access to social media by age.
Adults in the EU, 2025
Eurostat’s survey of internet use in households, share of all people in each age group:
| In 2025, people who… | 16–74 | 16–24 | 55–74 |
|---|---|---|---|
| used the internet every day | 90% | 98% | 78% |
| went online with a mobile phone or smartphone | 90% | 97% | 79% |
| used instant messaging | 82% | 93% | 68% |
| used social networks | 67% | 90% | 44% |
Among people who use the internet, 96% use a phone to do it; only about 2% go online from a computer alone.
Teenagers in the EU, 2026
A Eurobarometer survey asked 26,297 teenagers aged 13 to 18 and 12,750 parents in every EU country, between 30 March and 16 April 2026:
- Screen time: 4.5 hours on a school day and 6.1 hours on a weekend day, by teens’ own account. Their parents guess 3.4 and 5.3.
- Long days: 25% go over six hours on a school day and 46% on a weekend day; 14% pass ten hours on a weekend day.
- What fills it: social media first, at 2.6 hours a day, then gaming, schoolwork and streaming at 2.2 hours each, and messaging at 2.
- Starting early: teens who joined social media before age 10 report 7.5 hours on a weekend day, against 5.7 for those who joined after 14.
- How they feel about it: 48% of teens say social media is good for their wellbeing and 18% that it is bad.
- The past month: 34% had tired eyes, 33% headaches, 33% fatigue and 32% trouble concentrating. Among heavy weekend users, tired eyes, fatigue and sleep problems were reported more than twice as often as among light users.
- Parents: 74% talk with their child about social media every week; 33% use parental controls or screen-time tools.
15-year-olds, PISA 2025
- About 6 hours a day on digital devices on weekdays and 5 at weekends, for learning and leisure together; about 3.4 hours of it is leisure.
- At school: 1.7 hours a day for learning and 1.1 hours for leisure. More than an hour of leisure use at school goes with lower science scores, consistently across the data.
- In PISA 2022, 45% said they felt nervous or anxious when their devices were not near them.
Young adolescents, WHO Europe
WHO Europe’s survey of about 280,000 young people aged 11, 13 and 15 in 44 countries and regions found that problematic social media use rose from 7% in 2018 to 11% in 2022: 13% of girls and 9% of boys. 36% were in constant online contact with friends, and 12% were at risk of problematic gaming. What “problematic” means: the signs researchers use.
Countries that measure screen time
| Country | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Norway, 2025 | 5 h 21 min a day on screens on average; 13–15: just over 6 h; 16–19: 7 h 6 min; 20–24: 7 h 19 min | Statistics Norway |
| France, 2024 | 72% of people aged 12 and over spend more than 2 hours a day on screens for personal use, 25% more than 5 hours; 42% find their own screen time excessive | Baromètre du numérique 2025 |
| Finland, 2020–21 | 4 h 26 min a day in front of screens, age 10 and over, measured during the pandemic | Statistics Finland |
What Europeans want
- Age rules: in a June 2026 Eurobarometer of 25,904 people, 63% wanted EU rules limiting children’s access to social media by age: 36% a ban below a set age, 27% delayed access. 13% would leave it to parents and schools.
- Their worries: cyberbullying (71%), grooming (70%), harmful content (69%), misuse of children’s data (69%) and addictive platform design (60%).
- A priority: 92% say protecting children online should be a top priority (Digital Decade survey, 2026).
Where the rules stand: social media age limits and phones in schools, country by country.
What these numbers do not say
- Most are self-reported. People guess their screen time, and teens and parents guess differently.
- “Screen time” mixes everything: school, work, films, messages and feeds.
- Links are not causes. Heavy users report more tiredness and headaches; the surveys do not show which causes which.
- They do not compare directly. Ages, years and questions differ from survey to survey.
Your own number
Your phone’s screen time report is the most accurate figure you have. Put it in the screen time calculator to see what it adds up to over a year. If you want the phone out of your hand more often, Lychnos Ring is being built to answer the small things from your finger; it is in development.
Sources
More guides like this one: phone habits, what the research says.
Read on 4 November 2026. Eurostat, ICT usage in households and by individuals, 2025, datasets isoc_ci_ifp_fu, isoc_ci_dev_i and isoc_ci_ac_i; EU Children’s Participation Platform, Eurobarometer on teens’ screen use and mental health, 22 June 2026; OECD, PISA 2025 Results, Volume I and PISA 2022 Results, Volume II; WHO Europe, teens, screens and mental health, 25 September 2024; Statistics Norway, Norsk mediebarometer 2025; Arcep, Arcom, CGE and ANCT, Baromètre du numérique 2025; Statistics Finland, time use survey 2020–2021; European Commission, Flash Eurobarometer on children online, 13 July 2026, with the full figures in the EU delegation’s summary; Digital Decade Eurobarometer 2026. General information, not medical advice.
Questions
How much time do Europeans spend on screens?
There is no single EU figure for adults. In Norway, people spend 5 hours 21 minutes a day on screens on average (Statistics Norway, 2025). Across the EU, teenagers aged 13 to 18 report 4.5 hours on a school day and 6.1 hours on a weekend day (Eurobarometer, 2026).
How many Europeans use a smartphone to go online?
In 2025, 90% of people aged 16 to 74 in the EU went online with a mobile phone or smartphone, and 97% of those aged 16 to 24 (Eurostat).