Study: Americans spending more time on Facebook; online gaming overtakes e-mail

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Americans are spending a quarter of their Internet time on Facebook or other social networking sites, while online video games have passed sending e-mail as the second most popular online activity, according to a new report from The Nielsen Co.

The report said that Americans spent 22.7 percent of their online time on social networking or blogs in June 2010, a 43 percent increase compared to June 2009.

The Nielsen Co.

Video game playing increased by 10 percent in the same period to account for 10.2 percent of time spent online, said Nielsen, which uses data gleaned from a select group of people the company monitors. Online video games edged e-mail usage, which declined 28 percent to an 8.3 percent share of online time.

Meanwhile, time spent on Web portals decreased 19 percent to a 4.4 percent share of all activity, and instant messaging had a 4 percent share, a decrease of 15 percent.

And viewing of online videos and movies increased 12 percent to about 3.9 percent of all activities, allowing that category to surge past online searches.

"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 e-mailing, leaving a whole lot of other sectors fighting for a declining share of the online pie," Nielsen analyst Dave Martin said statement released Sunday night.

Palo Alto's Facebook Inc., which just announced it has surpassed 500 million active members worldwide, may be the most responsible for the shifting patterns of online activity.

Facebook's status updates let members recommend news, video or other interesting Web topics, or send instant and direct messages to each other. Meanwhile, the company is also moving to gain a bigger share of the online search market by testing a new feature called Facebook Questions.

In the social networking category alone, an overwhelming 85 percent share of all online activities went to Facebook, whose members were logged on an average of 6 hours in the month. MySpace was a distant second at 5.6 percent of the total time spent, with Twitter and Blogger tied for third with 1.1 percent.

In the online games category, Redwood City's Electronic Arts accounted for about 17 percent of the time spent, ahead of Irvine's Blizzard Entertainment, with about 12 percent.

But Mafiawars.com, the Web site for the social media game Mafia Wars, came in third with a 5.2 percent share of time spent, with Zynga Game Network Inc. of San Francisco, which makes Mafia Wars and the popular Facebook social game FarmVille, was not far behind at 4.6 percent.

On mobile phones, however, e-mail remained the most popular activity, increasing during the year from a 37.5 percent share to 41.6 percent, Nielsen said.

Social networking came in third on mobile devices, although the overall share of activity increased 27 percent.

Still, Martin said, "while convergence will continue, the unique characteristics of computers and mobiles, both in their features and when and where they are used, mean that mobile Internet behavior mirroring its PC counterpart is still some way off."

The Nielsen Co.

Posted By: Benny Evangelista (Email, Twitter) | August 01 2010 at 08:50 PM

Listed Under: Facebook, Social networking, Video games