How do Germans spend their free time today?

The 2026 Leisure Monitor has yielded unsurprising results: people in Germany are spending less time socialising and more time staring at a screen.

Germans still love looking at screens

When the Hamburg Foundation for Future Studies conducted its first Leisure Monitor (Freizeit Monitor) 40 years ago, only 37 percent of people said they regularly met up with friends. In 2026, this already low number has fallen to 19 percent.

Instead, screens have long dominated how people in Germany spend their free time. Back in 1986, watching TV was the number one way to while away the hours, with 80 percent of respondents saying they regularly watched TV. 

Then internet screentime arrived. In 1998, just 3 percent of respondents said they used the internet at least once per week; in 2026, the same figure has grown to 97 percent. 

Today, 82 percent of respondents are using the internet at least once per week to listen to music digitally (up from 52 percent in 2016), 71 percent to use social media (up from 48 percent), and 33 percent to play video games (up from just 9 percent).

Compared with the 2016 survey, there has also been a 15-percentage-point increase in the number of people who said they spent their free time “doing nothing” or “chilling”. But it is difficult to tell whether this means actually doing nothing or whether scrolling social media is conflated with “doing nothing”. 

People are doing more of nothing, but they are also doing more of something. Compared to 2016, there has been a 15-percentage-point increase in the number of people going to amusement parks and museums and a 13-percentage-point increase in people going to concerts.

Smartphone use linked to declining birthrates

While people have long opted to look at screens during their free time, two recent studies suggest that looking at smartphone screens in particular is having a much broader impact on society than everyone seeing their friends a bit less.

The two studies suggest a strong link between consistent mobile phone and social media use and declining birth rates worldwide. They are the first academic studies to probe whether smartphones are contributing to declining birth rates.

In 2025, Germany’s birth rate reached its lowest level on record. The decline is often attributed to economic and cultural shifts, more women choosing not to have children, a shortage of affordable housing or childcare, and the rising cost of living. 

While these factors all play a role, studies suggest people just aren’t spending the time socialising, which is needed to build relationships that lead to people deciding to have children together.