Social Networking More Popular than E-Mail

If you feel that you're spending way too much time on online social network sites like Facebook and MySpace, you can breathe a sigh of relief at your online addiction as you are not alone!

Social networking and blogging now account for almost 10% of the time spent online globally -- more than time spent sending emails and more than time spent searching online, visiting software sites, and reading general interest sites, according to Nielsen Online. Nielsen Online's study reveals that one in every 11 minutes in spent in online social networking sites, and in the past year the reach of online networking sites has grown more than 5 percent.

In the case of Facebook -- the worlds current leading social networking site -- members spent 20.5 billion minutes on it between 2007 and 2008, up 566 percent from the previous year. Facebook now has 108.3 million unique visitors, with its biggest growth coming from 35-49 year old visitors.

And there are significant preferences of social networking websites depending where you are in the world. Many European countries like Australia, Spain, France, Italy and the U.K. favor Facebook. In Brazil, where social networking is at its global max with 80% of users doing it, social networking site Orkut takes the top spot. And in the U.S., MySpace is still the favorite.