According to recently updated data from Nielsen, the amount of time that people from around the world spend on social networking web sites has increased by 2 hours per person each month from 2009.
The study asked participants in 10 major countries how long they spent each month on web sites like Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and Classmates Online. The average across the study concluded that each person spent around five and a half hours using such sites every month.
This included access both at home and at work.
The study also revealed some other statistics about worldwide social media participation increases.
Time spent per person on social networking sites
Of the countries participating in the study, the country that was cited as having the highest hourly rate per person was Italy with an average of 6 hours, 27 minutes and 53 seconds. Second on the list was Australia with an hourly rate of 6 hours, 25 minutes and 21 seconds.
The United States was actually third on the list (previous predictions listed the United States as higher) with 6 hours, 2 minutes and 34 seconds. On the bottom of the list of 10 countries was Japan with an average of 2 hours, 37 minutes and 7 seconds that each person spent on social networking web sites each month.
Active unique audience to social networks
The increase in active unique audience to social networking web sites was listed as 30% from 244,217 to 314,523. This growth occurred from February of 2008 to February of 2009.
The increase in the United States was 45,072 from February of 2008 to February of 2010. Earlier predictions expected these number to be much higher but the study used only results from active members on the web sites rather than the total amount of people with memberships or subscriptions to any of the web sites included in the study.
Global traffic per social networking site
Five social networking web sites were included in the study. These sites were Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, LinkedIn and Classmates Online.
The largest social networking web site in terms of total unique active members was of course social networking king Facebook with a staggering majority. 52% of active social network members were active on Facebook with 19.16 sessions per person and 5 hours and 52 minutes per person.
The next web site in the list was Myspace with 15% of the social network traffic. Rounding out the list were Twitter, LinkedIn and Classmates Online with 10%, 6% and 5%, respectively.
You can check out the stats here.
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