( CNN ) -- Phone and tablet owners used to spend most of their time surfing the Web . Now they 're using apps , according to data from Flurry Analytics . A year and a half ago , mobile users tended to spend considerably more time -- an average of 64 minutes per day -- using the Web browser on their phone or tablet . By comparison , they spent only 43 minutes per day in apps . Now mobile users now spend an average of 94 minutes per day using apps , but just 72 minutes browsing the mobile Web , according to Flurry 's report , which was released earlier this month on the company 's blog . This does n't necessarily mean mobile users are spending nearly three hours per day looking at their phones . Flurry 's Web and app statistics came from different sources . But , overall , we do appear to be spending much more time looking at our phones than we used to . What 's driving the growth in time spent in mobile apps ? According to Flurry , consumers are using their apps more frequently . That is , the number of daily sessions is growing , although the duration of those sessions is not . Flurry predicts that smartphone users will continue to spend even more time proportionally with apps vs. the mobile Web -- and in fact , from June to December 2011 , they observed that average daily time spent on the mobile Web decreased slightly . `` Users seem to be substituting websites for applications , which may be more convenient to access throughout the day , '' the report said . Why is the mobile Web holding our attention less ? According to Flurry , it might be because Facebook 's app is so popular . `` This drop appears to be driven largely by a decrease in time spent on ( Facebook 's mobile website ) . In June 2011 , the average Facebook user spent over 33 minutes on average per day on the ( mobile ) website . Today , that number is below 24 minutes . ... ( Mobile users ) are increasingly accessing ( Facebook and other ) online services through mobile applications . '' Once Facebook is factored out of those statistics , Flurry notes that average time spent elsewhere on the mobile Web actually grew by about 2 % in the same time frame . It 's worth noting that Flurry is not a disinterested party here . This company sells mobile application analytics and an advertising platform that can be incorporated into mobile apps . Advertisers are very interested in the amount of time that people might be exposed to their ads . But the mobile Web , mobile browsers , and the nature of mobile apps are changing fast . More and more sites are being built using the latest Web markup language , HTML5 , which gives websites more app-like features . For instance , HTML5 supports geolocation , makes Web forms easier to fill out on your phone , supports coding scripts that enable custom features , and it also loads multimedia elements faster in Web pages . Consequently , more and more mobile apps will actually be delivered through the mobile Web browser -- making them Web apps . Want to see this in action ? Visit YouTube or Twitter via the Web browser on your phone or tablet . You 'll see a lot of conspicuously app-like functionality . In November Adobe announced that it was finally abandoning development of Flash for mobile browsers , and refocusing on HTML5 for delivering interactive features and video -- the death rattle of a long struggle in which Apple resisted letting Flash run on its iOS mobile operating system . With this turnabout , many designers began converting Flash-based websites ( especially ad-supported ones ) to HTML5 . The rise of HTML5 mobile Web apps could also eat into profits from today 's leading app marketplaces . HTML5 Report noted , `` The mass migration to HTML5 will eliminate the need to rely on companies like Apple and Google , which take up to 30 % of all revenues generated from applications . '' That 's a powerful financial incentive for app developers , digital publishers , and online services to start deploying more Web apps . There 's another bonus : `` Native '' apps are built to run on a specific platform . That 's why so many apps come in separate versions for the iPhone , Android and other mobile platforms . Building , updating and supporting all those separate pieces of software is fairly expensive and complex . But HTML5 is inherently cross-platform -- which means you build it once and it can run on any mobile device with a sufficiently advanced browser . And of course , users must download and install most native mobile apps in order to run them on their device . That 's a considerable hurdle -- only one in four mobile apps really engages mobile users , and 26 % of all apps downloaded are opened only once and then never used again . With HTML5 Web apps , users do n't have to download , install , launch or update anything . It just runs . So apps as we have come to known them are in the midst of a radical change . Whether the rise of HTML5 will lead mobile users to start spending more time with their browsers than native apps remains to be seen -- but for many mobile users , and for many apps , that distinction may start to become irrelevant . The opinions expressed in this post are solely those of Amy Gahran .
However , tablet users now spend an average of 94 minutes per day using apps . People are using apps more frequently even though they 're not spending more time . The drop in app traffic appears to be largely driven by Facebook 's app .