Facebook and Instagram are officially video platforms

If you’re on Facebook or Instagram, chances are you’re watching a video.

Last year, adult users of Facebook spent more than half their time on the platform watching videos, marking the first time ever that video use exceeded other kinds of activity on the platform, according to a new report from eMarketer. Adult users of Instagram, meanwhile, are expected to spend about 60% of their time on the platform watching video this year.

On average, adult users will spend about 17 minutes a day watching video on Facebook in 2024, and 21 minutes watching video on Instagram. In total, they’ll spend an average of 32 minutes on Facebook and 35 minutes on Instagram every day this year, eMarketer found.

The figures represent just how Meta’s aggressive push into social video, and its emphasis on Reels, has affected how its user base interacts with its apps. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, will account for more than 40% of US adults’ time spent watching social video this year, eMarketer found. Reels is driving that growth: eMarketer forecast that time spent on Reels will grow 9.4% this year.

The company is clawing back the market share it lost to TikTok, having fallen from 51.8% in 2019 to 37.4% in 2022. Still, Meta falls well short of TikTok in terms of time spent. US adults will spend 54 minutes a day on average on TikTok this year, according to the report.

In total, social video will account for more than a tenth of all US time spent with digital media in 2024, eMarketer found.