Dear Friends,
I asked Siddharth to draw a concept for today’s article. In our casual conversation, he was talking about a particular artist who drew various people’s pictures across the world while they were doing their respective chores (walking, eating, chatting, shopping, etc.), watching a mobile in their hand. Later, he chopped their hands in his pictures and grouped them on one canvas, showing how their heads tilted down irrespective of their chore.
This tilting is not just a head pose/neck-down issue, but it is becoming an economic pose-down! Let me dive deep into the statistics. However, a few numbers are assumptions. I am drawing some derivations for discussion purposes, but a few may not be true figures.
Explodingtopics.com
published a few stats recently on this issue. Globally, in 2025, people spend approximately 6 hours and 40 minutes of screen time per day. Daily screen time has increased by over 30 minutes per day since 2013. Almost half (49%) of 0- to 2-year-olds interact with smartphones. Gen Z averages around 9 hours of screen time per day. Here is the rate of change between average screen time in 2023 and 2024 for select countries: India’s change in screen time increased by 22 minutes in one year itself.
I was doing simple math on how it is an economic issue. Here are my assumptions and numbers.
Total smartphone users — 71,20,00,000 (people) — Estimated India smartphone users (~2025).
Employed ratio: 53% — Assume the share of the population that is employed.
Reels watchers’ fraction: 25% — Assumed share of people watching 1 h/day.
Average hourly wage: 101.50 (₹/hour).
However, when they watch these reels, they get some entertainment as well. Assume 20% of that 1 hour is the value credited back. This is a productivity gain value.
However, most of them watch at night (assuming 30%), and they get fatigued the next day, which impacts productivity the next day. I took fatigue hours as 0.16 (hours/day). This is productivity loss.
It also strains the eye. Assuming 18% of them need an extra eye exam, and the eye exam costs 500 rupees. This is an economic cost.
However, platform owners like Insta/Facebook get some ad revenue. Assume Ad Revenue Per Hour: 0.29 (₹/hour) — gross monetization per hour of social attention. Having said that, assume the creator’s share of ad revenue is 25% (share).
However, assume 50% of non-employed watchers are students; for them, it is learning loss and future opportunity loss, hence it is future economic loss. It means assuming a displacement rate of study time of 1 hour/day.
In between, I took many more assumptions, a lot of math, and finally arrived at a number. Of course, I am not that great in math accuracy (assume a few mathematical errors and approximations); however, it is a whopping figure!! I am showing here how big the loss is!!
Employed net cost/productivity loss/opportunity cost (annual): ₹3.669 trillion ≈ ₹3,66,869 crore;
Students’ human-capital loss (annual-equivalent): ₹0.146 trillion ≈ ₹14,586 crore;
Total annual impact (Employed + Students): ₹3.815 trillion (≈ 3.815 lakh crore)!! This is an economic loss of 1 hour of waste utilization without any learning from the content.
Mind-boggling number!! ~96% of the loss is workplace productivity/health; ~4% comes from students’ future-earnings erosion (annualized).
What is it for companies? What is it for schools and parents?
Company: At this scale, even a 1% productivity improvement against the habit is worth ~₹36,800 crore/yr nationally.
Parents: Replace 15 minutes/day of your ward’s time.
Platforms/Regulators: Expand bedtime prompts and session-length frictions; boost rev-share for positive learning content.
Ravi Saripalle
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