The UK was the "heaviest" user of social networking sites in Europe during August, according to a new report.Figures produced by comScore for the month indicate that 78 per cent of the British online population belonged to social networking communities, compared to the European average of 56 per cent.
Not only were there more visitors to such sites in the UK, but the number of hours spent on them and the number of pages viewed by individuals were also higher.
The average British visitor spent 5.8 hours per month on social networking sites and made 23 visits, while in Germany these figures stood at 3.1 hours and 13.8 visits respectively.
French web users, meanwhile, spent an average of two hours visiting these sites and clocked up 16.8 visits during the month.
Heavier users of social networking sites (those in the top 20 per cent of users in terms of time spent on such sites) were found to devote a substantial amount of time to viewing them, on average spending 22 hours on their favourite sites and making 71 visits.
On the other hand, "light" users (the least active 50 per cent of the community) only made an average of 4.6 visits during August.
A recent comScore study also revealed that UK internet usage in general is increasing, with the number of online homes in the country rising by almost half a million over the last 12 months.
