A new report has found that Northern Ireland is one of only two UK regions where a local news title reaches more than half the population online — with the Belfast Telegraph also being the third most-visited service here.
Ofcom’s annual Online Nation report examines people’s online habits and how they are served by online content providers and platforms.
The report found that 47.4m UK adults accessed the internet across various device types in May 2024 — Ofcom’s sample month — spending an average of four hours and 20 minutes online daily.
In Scotland, the average daily online usage time was four hours and 44 minutes, a minute longer than in Wales, while England and Northern Ireland both had an average time of four hours and 16 minutes.
Only Northern Ireland and Wales had local news titles that reached more than half the population of their region.
In Northern Ireland, this was the Belfast Telegraph, which also had the third-highest reach among adults in Northern Ireland at 51%, behind the BBC and Mail Online, respectively.
The report found that women are spending more time online nationwide but are also more concerned about online harm.
Across all adult groups and devices, women are spending 3
3 minutes more online each day than men, rising to an average of just over an hour longer among 18 to 24-year-olds.
The offices of Ofcom (Yui Mok/PA)
The daily average for women was four hours and 36 minutes, compared to four hours and three for men. The difference in time spent online was highest among those aged 18 to 24, with women of this age spending 21% more time online than men.
In addition to spending more time online, the report found that women were also more concerned than men about issues like extremism, human trafficking, and offensive content.
Users aged 13 or over were more likely to report seeing potentially harmful content or behaviour online (71%) compared to 68% in England, 68% in Wales and 66% in Northern Ireland.
Misinformation was the most prevalent potential online harm among UK internet users aged 13 and over, with more than 39% saying they had experienced it.
Following the announcement of the General Election on May 22 this year, there was a small but significant increase in June 2024 of internet users reporting encountering political or electoral misinformation (25%), up from 22% in January 2024.
In Northern Ireland and Wales, people are more likely to use Android than Apple smartphones, while the reverse is true in England and Scotland.
Across the UK, 29% (13.8m) of UK adults accessed pornographic content online in May 2024.
Northern Ireland was the UK nation with the highest online adult reach, with 34% (431k) visiting pornographic content services in May 2024, followed by Wales (32%, 694k), Scotland (30%, 1.2m) and England (29%, 11.5m)
Elsewhere, the Ofcom study found that forum site Reddit had leapfrogged X, formerly Twitter, on the list of the UK’s most popular social media apps.
Based on the amount of time spent each day on a platform during May, Ofcom said YouTube was the most popular platform, followed by Facebook and its linked Messenger app. Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, and Reddit completed the top five, and X is now in sixth place.