Study: 27% Of Time Online In The US Is Spent On Social Networking

We know that social media is an important part of many people’s lives, but it is also a lengthy portion, as well. Experian Marketing Services released a study showing that in the United States, 16 minutes out of every hour online was spent on social networking and forums, roughly 27% of all time spent on personal computers. The next closest online actions were entertainment sites (9 minutes/hour) and shopping (5 minutes/hour).

While these numbers are quite large, the trend is actually down a bit from 2011 when the US saw 30% of all time allocated to Social Networking. The additional minutes instead went to the “other” classification of time spent online which jumped from 14 minutes to 16 minutes.

Included in the report were the UK and Australia which each spent 14 minutes and 13 minutes on social networking sites, respectively. Both the UK and Australia also saw time spent on social networking sites drop from 2011 to 2012. The United Kingdom dropped from 25% to 22% while Australia’s usage dipped from 27% to 24%.

The likely reason for the dips in social on personal computers is the rise of mobile. With the quality of apps and mobile experiences, personal computing is no longer required to gather a full experience. The study does include mobile browsing usage, but no baseline for comparison or app comparison data.

For more information, see the full report from Experian Marketing Services.

About The Author

Greg Finn

Greg Finn is the Director of Marketing for Cypress North, a company that provides world-class social media and search marketing services and web & application development. He has been in the Internet marketing industry for 10+ years and specializes in Digital Marketing. You can also find Greg on Twitter (@gregfinn) or LinkedIn.