What Americans do online: Nielsen reveals some surprising facts

I was recently doing some research for a project that I am working on and I came across an article posted on the Nielsen blog that delivered some very interesting information.

To see the article, click here!

"Americans spend nearly a quarter of their time online on social networking sites and blogs, up from 15.8 percent just a year ago (43 percent increase) according to new research released today from The Nielsen Company. The research revealed that Americans spend a third their online time (36 percent) communicating and networking across social networks, blogs, personal email and instant messaging."

Now, there are millions of things to do online that take up plenty of time. Checking email, playing games, visiting websites, watching movies and checking out pictures of adorable cats with funny caption (icanhascheezburger.com) are just a few, but 22.7 percent of US internet time is spent on Social Networks.

Other interesting tidbits:

"Online games overtook personal email to become the second most heavily used activity behind social networks – accounting for 10 percent of all U.S. Internet time. Email dropped from 11.5 percent of time to 8.3 percent."

"Despite some predictions otherwise, the rise of social networking hasn’t pushed email and instant messaging into obscurity just yet. Although both saw double-digit declines in share of time, email remains as the third heaviest activity online (8.3 percent share of time) while instant messaging is fifth, accounting for four percent of Americans online time."

So what does this all mean?

1. Spending High $$ Amounts on a Website = Bad Idea
2. Spending $$ Developing Your Social Media Program = Good Idea

Justin Noland
Email: justin@wag.com