US users spend more time on social network sites

People in the US continue to spend more time on social networking and blog sites, with total minutes increasing 210 per cent year-over-year and the average time per person increasing 143 per cent year-on-year in December 2009, said a recent Nielsen study.

Year-on-year growth in average time spent by US users, for both Facebook and Twitter.com, outpaced the overall growth for the category, increasing 200 per cent and 368 per cent, respectively.
Among, the top five US social networking sites, Twitter.com continued its reign as the fastest-growing in December 2009 in terms of unique visitors, increasing 579 per cent year-on-year, from 2.7 million unique visitors in December 2008 to 18.1 million in December 2009.

However, month-on-month, unique visitors decreased five per cent. When narrowed by individual country, with 142.1 million unique visitors, the US had the largest number of social media and blog users in December, followed by Japan, which had 46.6 million unique visitors.

Australia led in average time per person spent, with the average Australian spending nearly seven hours on social media sites in December. The US and the United Kingdom came in a close second and third, with six hours and nine minutes and six hours and eight minutes, respectively.

Although the number of adults using social networking websites has grown rapidly, adults as a whole remain less likely than teens to use these sites.

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