According to The Nielsen Company, global* consumers spent more than five and half hours on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter in December 2009, an 82% increase from the same time last year when users were spending just over three hours on social networking sites. In addition, the overall traffic to social networking sites has grown over the last three years.
Globally, social networks and blogs are the most popular online category when ranked by average time spent in December, followed by online games and instant messaging. With 206.9 million unique visitors, Facebook was the No. 1 global social networking destination in December 2009 and 67% of global social media users visited the site during the month. Time on site for Facebook has also been on the rise, with global users spending nearly six hours per month on the site.
U.S. Growth in Average time Person on Facebook and Twitter Outpaces Growth of Overall Category
People in the U.S. continue to spend more time on social networking and blog sites as well, with total minutes increasing 210% year-over-year and the average time per person increasing 143% year-over-year in December 2009. Year-over-year growth in average time spent by U.S. users, for both Facebook and Twitter.com, outpaced the overall growth for the category, increasing 200% and 368%, respectively. Among, the top five U.S. social networking sites, Twitter.com continued its reign as the fastest-growing in December 2009 in terms of unique visitors, increasing 579% year-over-year, from 2.7 million unique visitors in December 2008 to 18.1 million in December 2009. However, month-over-month, unique visitors decreased 5%
Australia Leads in Average Time Spent per Person on Social Media Sites in December
When narrowed by individual country, with 142.1 million unique visitors the United States had the largest number of social media and blog users in December, followed by Japan, which had 46.6 million unique visitors during the month. Australia led in average time per person spent, with the average Australian spending nearly 7 hours on social media sites in December. The United States and the United Kingdom came in a close second and third, with 6 hours and 9 minutes and 6 hours and 8 minutes, respectively.
| Country | Unique Audience (000) | Time per Person (hh:mm:ss) |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 142,052 | 6:09:13 |
| Japan | 46,558 | 2:50:21 |
| Brazil | 31,345 | 4:33:10 |
| United Kingdom | 29,129 | 6:07:54 |
| Germany | 28,057 | 4:11:45 |
| France | 26,786 | 4:04:39 |
| Spain | 19,456 | 5:30:55 |
| Italy | 18,256 | 6:00:07 |
| Australia | 9,895 | 6:52:28 |
| Switzerland | 2,451 | 3:54:34 |
| Source: The Nielsen Company | ||
*Global data takes into account the following countries: U.S., U.K., Australia, Brazil, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, France, Spain and Italy
the unique audience in India – and even china – is higher than in many of the european countries. certainly than in Japan.
Wow. Compelling data.
I’m not so surprised at the lower usage in japan and Germany but I’m surprised Switzerland is as low in the ranking as it is.
Wait until China is allowed to play.
Insightful ! , any stats on India ? knowing whether people are accessing through PCs or Mobiles would also be a good insight .
This is interesting “Australia Leads in Average Time Spent per Person on Social Media Sites in December”
But Australians use social media sites like facebook and twitter as social networks to talk to their friends and not like they do in other countries as a media tool to share news, reports, stories and so on, Australians still don’t get it, most government departments don’t want to know about it, and only in the last six months businesses have started using social media tools as social marketing tools.
And I should add the majority of people using Twitter in Australia are marketers and bloggers that want everyone to know about them, they don’t really care about the social media part of it, it’s all about them.
Australian bloggers use twitter as a Digg type of site so they can share their content and nothing else.
I think to put this research in a complete global context, Africa should be captured in the publication.
There is already a close correlation between the rising number of obese Americans and the number of hours they spend in front of the TV and playing video games every day. Is it fair to say that social networking will only contribute to the trend? Do we as Americans really need another excuse to stay inside and remain inactive all the while ignoring the people in our homes that we are already neglecting by spending too much time participating in activities that require no physical activity and really minimal social activity. Cant we talk to the people in our own homes? I do enjoy using Facebook but at what point do we say enough is enough and actually enjoy some real human contact. You know we all need physical human contact to survive physically and mentally. When was the last time you actually touched someone or were touched by someone?
Wow…I cannot believe how much facebook has managed to increase its number of users as compared to the rest. Also, I see that MySpace is the ony one which has gone down….
Very interesting!
I think social media is only for youngsters is for all those who love to connect with people socially , professionally etc . The numbers will surely keep going up in 2010 as there are more social media sites coming up eZdia where you not only connect with people but also earn money from your expertise by doing freelancing. eZdia.com is a social , professional networking as well as freelancing site . I think in 2010 its going to play a big role and a threat to the existing social media sites.
This is exactly why businesses need to capitalize and begin using these social media sites to gain a professional advantage. If you look up a business now a days and they don’t have a facebook or twitter account it’s as if they automatically lose some of their legitimacy. The media company I work for has just embarked on a new Internet Marketing journey and the reviews from clients have been astounding, everyone is getting into this social networking.
Those social media are not free of time. Japanese are mostly spending time while commuting (school, work or else) and rather through mobile – which makes facebook not so useful in there. Swiss are just not into social media – culturally or just matter of time, whatsoever.
Social media takes too much time, I can do it to share with family and friends but I still need to make money at the end of the day…
Social media isn't only for young people. The fastest growing Australian social network for over 50s is About My Agehttp://www.aboutmyage.com . It's ranked in Google's top 10 searches. Older people want to interact with their own generational community and they spend more time online. They don't hit and run like youngsters. They can spend hours chatting in About My Age chat rooms.
That's because the population of India is many times more than the population of European countries, and of Japan. Also, there are more people with internet accesss in India than in China, I think.
Interesting to see the breakdown in terms of age and will this carry through as people get older, i.e. do teenagers using Myspace migrate to Facebook and Twitter and then to LinkedIn as they move through their working lives. Obviously some social networking sites end up targeted a particular demographic.
Great info especially for social media marketers. I would have liked to see India as well included in the study. I think a lot of Indians too are participating in such social networks.
Great data! I use Social Media now for everything, business and personal. Really thoughtful comments as well, regarding futher demographic breakdowns and analysis. On a web anthropology level, I believe it a more socially interactive trend to see social media use rising, while T.V time dropping!
Apparently, if you add it all up, we're spending 400 lifetimes a day on Facebook:
http://www.nanaroo.com/400-lifetimes-lost-on-face...
Cheers,
Matthew Campbell
Nanaroo.com
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