The streets of Singapore are crammed with people walking along glued to their phones. So it comes as no surprise that only Indians spend more time on the Web than Singapore, a study by Tata Communications has found.
Indian telecommunications firm Tata Communications spoke to 9,417 respondents in India, Singapore, the U.K., United States, Germany and France as part of its online survey, the results of which were published this week.
Respondents were asked 14 questions, aiming to analyze people's emotional connection to the Internet.
A total of 43 percent of Singapore respondents said they spend more than six hours a day surfing the Web, significantly more than the global average of 29 percent.
Indians, meanwhile, spent the largest proportion of their day online, with 46 percent of respondents clocking up six hours or more online.
Overall, 71 percent of respondents overall said they spent up to six hours a day, with 29 percent saying they spent at least six hours or more.
Asian respondents also appeared to be the most dependent on the net compared to the other regions profiled. Over half of Singaporeans (52 percent) and 56 percent of Indians said they were not capable of lasting up to 12 hours without Internet access.
Seventy-eight percent of Singapore respondents said not having Internet access sparks negative emotions versus a 64 percent global average. The average surveyed Singaporean believes they can only survive 7.3 hours without Internet access.
By contrast, people in Europe and the U.S. can go much longer without an online fix, the survey found, with 86 percent of Germans, 77 percent of French, 75 percent of U.S. and 70 percent of U.K. respondents managing up to 12 hours without Internet.
Tata also delved into the modern Internet-induced phenomenon of FOMO—fear of missing out—a concern that you're missing out on a crucial online experience.
It found that 64 percent of all the people it surveyed said they experienced FOMO when without Internet access. Asian respondents seemed the biggest victims of FOMO, with 80 percent admitting to experiencing it when not online.
The top trade-offs when it came to substituting Internet usage for other activities were alcohol at 28 percent, television at 26 percent, chocolate at 22 percent and sports at 19 percent, Tata found.
On a global scale, 92 percent of respondents said they spent at least an hour a day online, and one in three said they couldn't survive more than five hours without their online fix.
More than three-quarters of respondents said they believed the most beneficial impact of the Internet is its ability to connect people globally with incredible speed.
