In their first study on frequency of Internet usage among adults since 2009, Pew’s data reveals that on any given day over half of American adults are likely to use the Internet just for fun or for no particular reason at all (most would index that latter activity as “wasting time”). Probably most unsurprising about the results of this study is that the youngest adults surveyed, those 18 to 29 years of age, reported the greatest increase of Internet usage as a diversion on any given day. Part of that increase may be explained with how the younger generations are growing up with greater exposure to the Internet but there’s also likely more accessibility in general to online goodness these days.

Apart from the finding that more adults are likely to use the Internet as a distraction anytime these days, the study also revealed that Internet usage for fun times has increased in a broader sense as well. In fact, the growing trend of adults seeking out the latest Internet memes and funny Twitter posts has doubled in the past eleven years.

Despite the general growth of people regarding the Internet as a leisure destination, two demographics still fall far behind the general population: Americans without a high school diploma and adults over the age of 65. While those two groups have seen increases – and even though those increases are two of the greatest percentages of growth amongst all demographics surveyed – they still are significantly behind all other demographics.

Upon further contemplation of the two line graphs above, though, I do have one lingering question about this data: What happened in 2005 that made the Internet less fun to people?

Among the interesting things is how much Generation X and Generation Y use the Internet, likely because both generations grew up with it. The data holds on fairly well until you hit age 71, when Internet usage drops significantly.

Internet usage by age is clear. But Internet usage by gender is a little less clear, with men (78%) slightly outpacing women (75%). Internet usage by ethnicity shows that whites (78%) are pretty similar to Latinos (75%), with both exceeding usage among African-Americans (68%). Not surprisingly, Internet usage increases with education and income.

All the other data I’ve seen shows that numbers across the board continue to climb, and even if you’re targeting older Americans, there are sites such as Eons and Third Age that do a great job targeting older people for social media marketing.

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Internet World Stats contains some interesting figures about Internet usage. The historical difference between December 1995 and December 2007. Much has changed since IE replaced Netscape and Mosaic as the browsers of choice among the majority of Internet users.

In December 1995, IDC said 16 million users, 0.4 percent of the population globally, used the Internet.

Twelve years later, Internet World Stats updated that to 1.3 billion global Internet users, 20 percent of the planet.

Global village? More like a Sprawl in our view. That’s a lot of people hitting their computers for Britney Spears updates, no matter how one looks at the data.

Teens Not Loyal To One Social Network

What might be more surprising, after a solid year of Facebook hype, though, is the vast difference in numbers still between it and the Mother Ship: MySpace.

Nielsen//NetRatings’ latest numbers, gleaned from August 2007, show that young visitors (ages 12-17) spend a lot more time at MySpace, averaging 331 minutes per person to Facebook visitors’ 74 minutes per person.

An even more impressive number: 80 percent of the 19.2 million Facebook visitors also visited MySpace. But 19.2 million visitors are nothing to sneeze at, of course, and represent a 117 percent increase over August of 2006.

When young visitors flit between sites like this, says Nielsen, they show a stronger tendency to spend more time on both sites. In August, teens who visited both sites spent on average 20 percent more time on MySpace (398 minutes) than loyal Myspacers, and 26 percent more time on Facebook (93 minutes).

“MySpace introduced a lot of people, especially young people, to social networking, and that forum continues to be overwhelmingly popular,” said Jason Lee, a Nielsen//NetRatings media analyst.

“But Facebook’s innovative features, many born out of partnerships with third party developers, are driving user growth. Teens continue to interact with friends on MySpace, but have not hesitated to follow their peers to the latest social networking brand. At this point, each site has a unique offering, and teens are happily visiting both.”

Brazil had the largest amount of users online with 15.8 million, which is 11 percent of the country’s population over the age of 15. Chile had 45 percent of its population online and had the highest Internet penetration.

Internet users in Argentina were the most active of all users, going online an average of 18 days in the month.

On average the Brazilian Internet user viewed 3,371 pages during the month, 40 percent more than the Latin American average of 2,338.

Said Bob Ivins, EVP of comScore International Markets, "Because of it size and rapid development, the Internet industry in Latin America is an exciting region to track and analyze. We have been reporting country-specific browsing data from the comScore panel for a number of years but this is the first time we have compared metrics across the
region."

The most visited Latin American property was Microsoft Sites, which had 47.3 million unique visitors. Google Sites trailed closely with 46. 5 million unique visitors and Yahoo Sites were a distant third with 35 million unique visitors.

Since the survey started in 2001, the largest gap in wireless phone usage between men and women was in 2002. Men averaged 598 minutes per month and women averaged 394 minutes.

The survey also found that 45 percent of wireless subscribers use text-messaging and 44 percent use the camera feature. Seventeen percent of users play games on their cell phone and 11 percent access wireless email.

Women use the gaming, camera and text messaging features more frequently and men use wireless email and access the Internet more frequently then women.

Overall, men and women use cell phones more than home phones on average (455 minutes compared with 394 minutes). Women on average, spend more time on home phones than men. Women use a home phone 532 minutes compared with only 237 minutes for men.

"Women are quickly catching up with men in cell phone usage, illustrating that all consumers enjoy the flexibility and mobility that wireless phones add as they communicate with friends, family and business colleagues," said Tim Klein, vice president, AT&T’s wireless unit.

"AT&T is aggressively growing its portfolio to become the only wireless company these men and women will ever need."

They say the popularity of mobile search is the reason for the rise in mobile Web usage. Bango says that the top five countries accessing the mobile Web in April 2007 are the UK at 27 percent, the U.S. at 21 percent, South Africa at 11 percent, India at 9 percent and Indonesia at 3 percent.

In the first quarter of 2007 the most popular handset was Sanyo Katana SCP 6600, which is only available in the U.S. reflecting the strong growth in mobile surfing by U.S. mobile users. Other popular handsets were the Motorola V360, the Sony Ericsson K750i and the Samsung A900.

"We see that wherever flat-rate data charges are pervasive in a country then there’s much more web browsing," said Anil Malhotra, SVP of Marketing at Bango. "We expect to see more competitively priced flat-rate data plans in the US which will stimulate further web browsing."

Bango has also seen an increase in the amount of mobile surfers coming from India. There has been a 4 percent increase in visits to mobile sites from India in the past year. Mobile Web usage in India is on pace to exceed European levels within the next few years.

"What we’re seeing through these numbers is a transformation of the internet from something connected to a desktop to something mobile," said Malhotra. "With the advent of mobile search that transformation is happening on a truly global scale."