Consumers Spending More Time Online

As times change, so do our viewing habits. It will probably come as no surprise to many people that the Internet is the medium on which online users spend the most time, according to a new report from market research firm, IDC.

The report says that online users spend about 32.7 hours a week on the Internet. This is equivalent to almost half of the total time spent each week using all media (70.6 hours), almost twice as much time as spent watching television (16.4 hours) and more than eight times as much time as spent reading newspapers and magazines (3.9 hours).

The increase in Internet usage can also be tied to the wider variety of devices that consumers can use these days. For instance, Apple's new iPod touch and iPhone both use Wi-Fi to give users access to the Internet, so we do not rely solely on computers anymore.

The data also shows that consumers tend to use the media they grew up with, said IDC. The older the respondents, the more they consume TV, newspapers, and magazines; the younger they are, the more the Internet displaces usage of traditional media.

The most frequently used online activities among the respondents are search engines (84 percent); mapping and navigation services (83 percent), personal research (77 percent), and using email (76 percent).