Americans Like Social Networks and Games More than E-mail and Portals

If you’re still wondering what all the fuss about social networks and those silly online games are all about, look no further than the latest Nielsen figures about the top 10 sectors of the Internet.

Social Networks was the top category by share of Internet time in the U.S., taking up 22.7 percent of American online users’ time in June, up 43 percent from 15.8 percent in June 2009.

Online Games followed with 10.2 percent of time spent, up 10 percent from 9.3 percent in June of last year.

E-mail was third with 8.3 percent, down 28 percent from 11.5 percent in June 2009.

Portals (4.4 percent, down from 5.5 percent), Instant Messaging (4.0 percent, down from 4.7 percent), Videos/Movies (3.9 percent, up from 3.5 percent), Search (3.5 percent, up from 3.4 percent), Software Manufacturers (3.3 percent, unchanged), Multi-catgeory Entertainment (2.8 percent, down from 3.0 percent) and Classifieds/Auctions (2.7 percent, unchanged) rounded out the top 10 list.

“Despite the almost unlimited nature of what you can do on the web, 40 percent of U.S. online time is spent on just three activities – social networking, playing games and emailing leaving a whole lot of other sectors fighting for a declining share of the online pie,” said Nielsen analyst Dave Martin.

Nielsen breaks this all down into a nice, easily digestible form by noting that “If all U.S. Internet time were condensed into one hour,” 13:36 (hh:mm) would be spent on social networks/blogs, 6:06 would be spent on games, 5:00 would be spent on e-mail, 2:36 would be spent on portals, 2:24 would be spent on instant messaging, 2:18 would be spent on videos/movies, 2:06 would be spent on search, 2:00 would be spent on software info, 1:42 would be spent on multi-category entertainment, 1:36 would be spent on classifieds/auctions and 20:36 would be spent on the remaining 74 online sectors visited from PCs and laptops.

Nevertheless, Nielsen notes that social networks have yet to push e-mail and instant messaging into the abyss.

For the mobile Internet, Nielsen shows that “If all U.S. mobile Internet time were condensed into one hour,” 25:00 would be spent on e-mail, 7:00 would be spent on portals, 6:18 would be spent on social networks/blogs, 4:12 would be spent on search, 2:42 would be spent on news, 2:00 would be spent on entertainment, 1:54 would be spent on music, 1:42 would be spent on weather, 1:24 would be spent on sports, 1:12 would be spent on videos/movies and 6:42 would be spent on the other 14 categories accessed from mobile phones.

Source:

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/what-americans-do-online-social-media-and-games-dominate-activity/