Experian released a new study on Internet use on personal computers:

Experian Marketing Services, a global provider of integrated consumer insight, targeting and cross channel marketing, reveals that if the time spent on the Internet for personal computers was distilled into an hour then 27 percent of it would be spent on social networking and forums across US, UK and Australia. In the US, 16 minutes out of every hour online is spent on social networking and forums, nine minutes on entertainment sites and five minutes shopping.

In the UK 13 minutes out of every hour online is spent on social networking and forums, nine minutes on entertainment sites and six minutes shopping.  Australian Internet users spend 14 minutes on social sites, nine on entertainment and four minutes shopping online.

I think it can be revealing to add up the amount of time you spend online (or spend in traffic, watching movies, whatever). For example, if you spend an hour every day doing something, that works out to 15.2 days per year. Now, I easily spend an hour a day walking my dog, but I’ll die content with that choice: he’s a great dog.

 

On the other hand, if I spend an hour a day on Facebook, and the first 5 minutes are fun but the next 55 are kind of… mechanical and mindless.. then I’m spending about 1 day making myself happy, and wasting 14 days. That’s the equivalent of two vacations.

I don’t know about you, but I have better things to do with two weeks of my life.