It has been revealed that British web users now spend an average of 2.8 per cent of their online time reading news, as opposed to 2.7 per cent looking at content on adult sites.
According to research by the United Kingdom Online Measurement Company (UKOM), the amount of time that web users in the UK look at explicit content online has fallen over the past three years, whilst online news consumption has almost doubled over the same time.
Alex Burmaster of UKOM has pointed out that these figures explode the myth that people spend most of their time online viewing pornography. He commented: “The prevalence of web adult usage has always been greatly overestimated. The reality is completely different.”
The most popular activity online now, according to the figures, is social networking sites, with sites like Facebook and Twittter eating up 22.7 per cent of British online time. Sending and receiving email came in at number two, taking up 7.2 per cent of our time and playing games online was at number three, taking up 6.9 per cent of UK web users’ time.
The figures showed that online news is growing in popularity. Three years ago reading online news took up 1.5 per cent of time spent online, compared with 2.8 per cent today.
