Report confirms: Americans’ time online growing
A new report confirms something most Americans may already have figured out — we are spending more time online, especially interacting with social media and watching videos.
Research by GfK for the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) finds that the average time spent online in the U.S. increased again in 2012 to three hours, seven minutes, up from two hours, 56 minutes in 2011 and two hours, 34 minutes in 2010.
The growth was driven by more time spent online with social media and watching videos.
By comparison, use of other media was pretty flat last year.
TV watching slipped one minute to five hours, five minutes. Radio dropped 10 minutes to one hour, 50 minutes.
Newspaper reading slipped one minute to an average 18 minutes per day and magazines were flat at 14 minutes.
The only significant rise besides online was in playing video games, which increased to 48 minutes from 39 minutes the previous year.
Within the online category, the survey for IAB found that use of social media increased to an average 37 minutes per day in 2012, from 30 minutes in 2011 and 26 minutes in 2010.
Online video viewing rose to an average 24 minutes per day (with 14 minutes from watching TV and movies online) in 2012 from 17 minutes in 2011 and 10 minutes in 2010. Time spent with email increased by five minutes last year to 33 minutes per day.
Most other online activities were little changed from the previous year. Using search was up two minutes to an average 22 minutes per day and online game playing gained one minute to 17 minutes.
