August 9, 2010 by James Oliver
A new study undertaken by Nielsen Online, the US company which monitors global Internet activity, suggests that online gaming is the biggest waste of time in the States. Previously, e-mail has always been the biggest consumer of online time, but it seems that gaming has now overtaken it in the popularity stakes.
Social networking, in particular games, are keeping Americans online for twenty-three percent of each day. The study, which looked at June 2010, found that visits to social networking had increased by sixteen percent from the following year. Facebook attracts half a billion users globally, and Americans spend eighty-five percent of their online time on social networking.
Ten percent of all time spent online was used for gaming, eclipsing e-mail for the first time, which amounted to just eight percent. Electronic Arts was found to be the most popular provider of games, including a golf application and a number of Facebook games.
Online movies also enjoyed an increase in popularity, growing by twelve percent in the past year. The number of videos exceeded ten billion, and the average amount of time spent streaming video was over three hours per month. Areas which had declined in use included portals, which reduced in use by over ten percent. However, portals still managed to be the fourth most used site online.
Dave Martin, an analyst from Nielsen, commented: “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.”
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