UK bucks European social networking trend

UK Adults are spending increasing amounts of time on social network websites such as Facebook, according to new figures from OFCOM. – more so than our European neighbours.

The UK adults who visit social networking sites spend an average of 5.3 hours per month on them and return to them an average 23 times in the month. In the UK and the U.S., women use the Internet more often than men. In the U.S., 52 percent of Internet users are women and in the UK the Internet is used equally by men and women except in the 18-34 age group where women spend more time online than men Source: WebProNews

I can’t personally say that I think this is brilliant news; social networking websites are still in their infancy and offer little as yet in the way of real benefits – Facebook is not a big favourite of mine, although LinkedIn will probably reach some kind of useful fruition this year. This does, however, indicate a shift away from traditional means of electronic communication – I would expect that this increasing traffic on social networks will herald a downturn in email usage, especially with email spam now estimated to reach 90% by the end of the year