Nielsen: E-Mail Most Common Mobile Internet User Activity

Consumer research organization Nielsen on Monday reported that 22.7 percent of Americans' online time is spent on social networking sites and blogs compared to 15.8 percent in 2009.

About 10.2 percent of their online time was spent playing online games, up from 9.3 percent. Time spent on videos and movies and on searching was also up over last year, while time spent on email, Web portals, and instant messaging fell. A complete breakdown was posted by the San Jose Mercury News.

However, U.S. mobile Internet users showed a different priority for their online time. Nielsen reported that about 42 percent of such users' time was spent on email, compared to 12 percent of their time being spent on portals, 11 percent on social networks and blogs, and 7 percent on searches, according to a breakdown posted by the San Francisco Chronicle.

The mobile Internet user breakdown is important, as about 40 percent of American adults use the internet, e-mail, or instant messaging from some type of cell phone, up from 32 percent a year ago, according to findings released last month from the Pew Research Center.

This is a much faster growing segment of Internet users than those who use laptops to go online. Pew also reported that 47 percent of adult Americans currently access the internet via a laptop and either a Wi-Fi connection or mobile broadband card, compared to 39 percent last year.

Of the 22.7 percent of American users' online time spent on social networks and blogs, no further breakdown was provided on time spent on social networks vs. blogs.

That is significant because how the two activities are not necessarily related. As pointed out by BlogBloke, blogs typically are written for a specific online location, such as the writer's own website or some sort of community, and is focused on a particular news event or opinion. Bloggers get the search credit, not a social networking site, and they have more control over the topic than the quick comments from social networking users.

News about the Nielsen report also ignores the difference between business users and casual users of online resources. The distinction is important to anyone wanting to make use of trend information as a way to market product and services tailored to each type of user.