Access to the internet in recent years has been stable with just over 90 percent, and 82 percent use the internet daily, which is an increase of 2 percentage points since 2015.

It’s becoming more common to have both a computer and a tablet, along with a smartphone. There is now an average of 2.07 computers and 1.13 tablets per household. 92 percent have a computer, 81 percent have a smartphone and 65 percent have a tablet. Already at the age of 8, over half (55%) have access their own smartphone.

On average, we use the internet 24 hours a week. Around 9 of these are on the mobile phone, an increase with an hour from last year. People between the ages of 16 to 25 spend an average of nearly 40 hours a week on the internet.

More and more mobile

Swedes continue to use mobile phones more and more. 78 percent of the population uses the internet via mobile phone; 65 percent do it every day.

41 percent of Swedes have an iPhone and 37 percent choose Android. Among those up to 25 years old, the iPhone is in the clear majority, while Android is more common among those over age 46.

Children and youth are major users

Internet use among very small children continues to rise. Three out of four 2-year olds (72%) use the internet, which is an increase of five percentage points since the previous year when it was 67 percent. A third (32%) of the youngest children use the internet every day.

Girls are more active on social networks than boys. At the age of eleven, 56 percent of girls are daily users compared to 42 percent of boys in the same age.

Young women are also the ones who get into trouble more often on the net. In the ages of 12-15 years old, 28 percent of girls have been the victims of bullying, compared to 15 percent of the boys.

Internet at work

90 percent of those who are working have access to the internet at their job. In the internet’s infancy, there was much talk about what this revolution would mean for work life and that many would no longer go to their workplace, but work from home instead. In total, 53 percent of those who work, at some time use the internet to work from home.

Almost half (45 %) of those who work read their work e-mail during vacation.

Facebook increases, Twitter decreases

The use of social networks continues to increase somewhat and has been stable for some years at 75 percent.

The daily use of social media has more than doubled over the past six years, from 28 percent in 2010 to 58 percent this year.

Those who use social networks do so around one hour a day or seven hours per week. On average, women spend more time than men on social media, 7.8 hours per week compared to men’s 6.3 hours.

Over half of internet users visit social networks daily on their mobile phones.

Facebook is the social network that most people use (71%) and the use increases among all ages except for 12-15 year olds. The next biggest is Instagram (44%). A fourth of internet users use Snapchat (25%), but there is a big difference here between different age groups and there are very few users over 56 years old. The only social network to decrease in use is Twitter, from 22 percent in 2015 to 18 percent this year.

Love on the net – how common is it?

The younger one is, the more common it is to use some form of online dating. Among 16-25 year olds, two out of ten (18%) have done it, while one out of ten (10%) between the ages of 26-45 use online dating. There are more men than women that use net dating.

Of those who use dating services, four out of ten (42%) have not met anyone, while around just as many (39%) have met someone without results. About a fifth of those who use internet dating have had good results: 16 percent started a relationship and 3 percent moved in together or got married.

More use the bank in their mobile phone and sell things on the net

Nine out of ten (90%) of internet users have at some time bought something online, especially in the younger ages where almost all do it regularly.

More and more, now more than half (55%), also sell things on the net.

Four out of five (79%) with a smart phone use a mobile BankID and two thirds (66%) use the payment service Swish.

Streaming of movies and TV shows strongly increase, but YouTube is the biggest

Streaming of movies and TV shows has increased from 28 to 38 percent, while comparable services for music are at the same levels as last year (44%).

YouTube is the most popular site in all ages. 100 percent of the young in the ages of 11-19 years old watch YouTube. 80 percent of internet users over age 76 use YouTube at some time.

Though streaming services are increasing, file sharing has stayed at the same level, around 20 percent, during the past few years. File sharers are also the group that pays the most for streaming services, 60 percent of file sharers pay for streaming services, compared to 39 percent who do not use file sharing.

Among the new services on the internet are AirBnB and Uber, at 15 and 4 percent respectively.

Differences between women and men

Women and men use the internet equally, but men spend more internet time at home, 15.5 hours per week, compared with 12.1 hours for women. When it comes to smartphones, it is the opposite; women spend more time, 9.6 hours per week, compared with 8.5 hours for men.

Women are more active on social networks than men. They post, share and forward more frequently. They are also more interested in health and medical questions on the internet.

Men are more active on discussion forums and watch more movies and TV shows than women. They also visit dating sites more often, as well as gambling sites.

The difference between women and men in terms of perceived skills is mainly comprised of more men than women who judge themselves as very skilled.

The internet is the most important information source

For the younger ages, the internet has been the most important information source for many years, but now, for the first time, we see this applying on average to all users. When Swedes rank information sources on a 5-grade scale, the internet, for the first time, gets the highest average score - 3.7, compared to 3.5 for TV, 3.2 for daily newspapers and 3.1 for radio.

Facebook is becoming a more important news source, and young people between the ages of 16-25 years old consider Facebook a more important news source than TV, radio or daily newspapers.

Many are still outside, but it’s becoming fewer

630,000 people are still outside of the internet in Sweden. This represents 7 percent of the population.

Half of the oldest (over 75 years old) are non-users. But there are starting to be big changes. Just a few years ago, a third of those between 66-75 years old were non-users compared to just 14 percent today.

No interest is the main reason given.