Social Networking Is the No. 1 Online Activity in the U.S.

Three hours and six minutes. That’s the average time American adults spent online each day in the past year, up from two hours 34 in 2010. The internet is now firmly established as the second most important medium in our lives, as the TV remains the number 1 with more than five hours of everyday use.

According to GfK’s data, social networking takes up the most of Americans’ online time. On average, Americans spent 37 minutes per day with services such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn in the past year. Email is the second most popular online activity in the U.S. with an average use of 33 minutes per day. Surprisingly, Americans spent more time watching online videos than they did using search engines last year. With growing adoption of services such as Netflix and Hulu, online video consumption has increased steeply in the past three years, from just 10 minutes per day in 2010 to 24 minutes in 2012.