New Poll Shows Shift in Amount of Time Spent on the Internet

More time online

A new poll released today by Harris Interactive reveals that adult internet users now average 13 hour per week online (which makes me personally anything but average, as you would guess). They found that 20% of adult web users are on for two hours or less each week while 14% spend 24+ hours online weekly.

From 1999-2002, the average hours spent online weekly was seven hours, then in 2003-2006 it bumped to between eight and nine hours, then in 2007 it jumped to 11 hours and now we’re averaging 13 hours weekly. I don’t know what the questionnaire asked specifically, but I wonder if people using the web on their cell phones were counted?

As a marketer, you should know that although people like me who spend at least 13 hours online each day, most consumers are spending that much in a week, meaning the window of opportunity to grab their attention for the specific task they are online to perform is very small, so make it punchy!

Guess who spends the most time online of all adults? It’s not the twenty somethings, it’s those aged 30-39 who spend 18 hours online each week and 62% of that same age group purchased something online last month.

80% of adults in America are now online either from work, home, or school which hasn’t changed much since 2008 despite the shift in the time invested online, although the number of those using the web from home has jumped up 10% since 2005.

Why all these changes?

As technology becomes easier to use and less expensive, it permeates more markets. Speculators blame the recession for the increase in time online, stating that it’s cheaper to play online that it is to go to a movie or spend time out (although I speculate it’s not about the recession, it’s about a natural technology adaptation shift). Other technologies are rapidly being adopted like smart phones, more advanced televisions, GPS systems and the like that would make some frown confusedly just 10 years ago.

I suspect this amount of time will begin spiking in the next 24 months as people begin using mobile based applications more and more, I mean even my grandma knows what an iPhone “app” is now, so the web will soon be like the Macarena- everyone will know what it is, some will hail it, others will poo poo it, but regardless, we’ll continue investing our time in it as it currently has infinite possibilities.

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Keywords: internet demographics, web statistics

Topics: News, Social Media, Tech