19 May 2010 | Author: D. Warburton Search Copywriter

British web users spend more than 22 hours a month online

Thanks to the rise of social networking, UK web users now spend around one day out of every month online - a 65 per cent increase compared to just three years ago.

This is according to a new survey published by the UK Online Measurement company (UKOM), which found that the average web user spends 22 hours and 15 minutes on the internet every month.

The highest percentage of this time (22.7 per cent) is spent on social networks and blogs, which have shifted focus away from other online habits since 2007 - particularly instant messaging, which now accounts for just 4.9 per cent of time spent online, compared to 14 per cent three years ago. Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter now hold a significant influence in many areas of contemporary life, including playing a role in the recent General Election.

UKOM spokesperson Alex Burmaster told BBC News that networking, communication and online games are still the most popular pastimes. "These are the pillars on which the internet [is] built," he said.

Online games take up 6.9 per cent of all time spent online in the UK, while email - previously predicted to be another victim of the social networking explosion - has grown from 6.5 per cent in 2007 to 7.2 per cent today.

It was also revealed earlier this year that young men are most closely attached to the net, with 99 per cent heading online every day or nearly every day, and as many as 18 per cent accessing social networks from mobile devices before even getting out of bed.

"[Social networking] is like an organism, feeding off itself and getting bigger," Burmaster explained. "People are plugging more and more of their lives into it."

The UKOM study also revealed that adult sites only account for a modest proportion of internet use, with people spending more time visiting news sites (2.8 per cent) than seeking out pornography (2.7 per cent).

"It is a bit of a digital myth that everyone online visits adult sites," Burmaster said.

"We divide the internet into 85 different sections so the fact that adult content is in the top 10 shows it is still one of the most heavily used sectors."

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