Americans Really ‘Like’ Facebook

Posted on Sep 14, 2011

Flickr / Ksayer1 (CC-BY-SA)

A recent Nielsen report shows that Americans reached a new cultural milestone in May: They collectively spent 53.5 billion minutes on Facebook that month.

That means that the average American Facebook user (of 150 million) spent about 12 minutes a day, or just less than 6 hours a month on the social networking site.

Americans spent more time on Facebook in May than on any other website that month. Yahoo came in second place with 17.2 billion minutes, and Google ranked third with 12.5 billion minutes. —BF

SF Gate:

With Americans now spending nearly one-quarter of their overall Internet time on social networks and blogs, Nielsen said the results show “how powerful this influence is on consumer behavior, both online and off.”

“Whether it’s a brand icon inviting consumers to connect with a company on LinkedIn, a news ticker promoting an anchor’s Twitter handle or an advertisement asking a consumer to ‘Like’ a product on Facebook, people are constantly being driven to social media,” said Nielsen’s first-ever State of the Media report to focus on social networking.

The report took a snapshot of online activity during May and found nearly 4 of every 5 active U.S. Internet users went to social-networking and blogging sites, accounting for 22.5 percent of the total amount of minutes people spent online. Online gaming was next with 9.8 percent, followed by e-mail at 7.6 percent.

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