This week, Nielsen released statistics that cast a new light on how people use the Internet.

According to the research firm, Internet users now spend 22 percent of their online time on a blog or social networking site.  Web users now spend 110 billion minutes on these sites each month.

An article in The New York Times highlighted the statistics and the changes from one year ago:

“Web users spent almost six hours during the month of April on social sites, versus 3 hours, 30 minutes during April of last year.”

The research from Nielsen shows that people spend one in every 4.5 minutes on a blog or social network.

Facebook, which now has nearly a half billion users, occupies more of people’s time online than any other social network.  According to Nielsen’s statistics, Facebook users spend nearly six hours on the site each month:

“For the first time ever, social network or blog sites are visited by three quarters of global consumers who go online.”

The research shows that Brazil is the most socially connected country, and Australians spend more time on social networks than any other nation.

Google is the search engine of choice for people around the world.  Nielsen’s research shows that 82 percent of internet users around the world use the site every month.

More of the top 10 most visited Internet sites include: MSN, Yahoo, Bing, eBay, Apple, and AOL.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.