South Korean teens spend more than three hours a day watching online videos: Survey

SEOUL – South Korean teenagers spend more than three hours a day watching online video content, driven largely by short-form videos, a survey showed on Jan 7.

According to a survey released by the Korea Press Foundation and conducted by Gallup Korea, 95.1 per cent of the respondents said they had used online video platforms in the past week. The survey included 2,674 students from grades four to 12 and was conducted between June and September in 2025.

Students watched an average of 200.6 minutes, or 3.3 hours, of online video content per day. By school level, middle school students – those in grades seven to nine here – logged the most viewing time at 233.7 minutes a day, followed by high school students at 226.2 minutes and elementary school students at 143.6 minutes.

Games were the most-watched content, cited by 63.9 per cent of respondents in the survey, which allowed multiple answers. Music, performances and dance followed at 50.6 per cent, while cooking and eating content ranked third at 40.6 per cent.

Instagram was the most frequently used platform, with 37.2 per cent of respondents naming it as their primary choice. YouTube followed at 35.8 per cent, ahead of YouTube Shorts at 16.5 per cent, TikTok at 8 per cent and Naver Clip at 1.3 per cent.

“YouTube ranked highest in overall use of online video platforms, but Instagram Reels surpassed it as the most frequently used platform,” the report said, noting a shift in consumption from long-form videos to short-form content.

When asked how often they had watched short-form videos over the past week, 49.1 per cent said they did so every day, a sharp increase from just 0.2 per cent in a similar survey conducted in 2022.

Some respondents – 30.3 per cent – said they had uploaded videos they filmed themselves to online platforms. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK