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Americans time spent on social media sites up 210% in 2009

February 22, 2010

Led by Facebook and Twitter, time spent globally on social media sites was up 82% in 2009. Time spent by Americans increased by 210%. This from a social media study from the Nielsen Company.

Time spend on social media

Eye opening findings from the study include:

  • Social networks and blogs are the most popular online category when ranked by average time spent.
  • Americans spend more time on blogs and social networking sites with total minutes increasing 210% year-over-year and the average time per person increasing 143% year-over-year in December 2009.
  • Facebook was the No. 1 global social networking destination.
  • The time spent by users on Facebook has increased to six hours per month.
  • The 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 continued as the fastest-growing 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.

Where Americans are spending their time is clearly depicted in the below graph.

top social media sites

And 45% of US law firms block the use of social media and social networking sites in the work place?