New research, conducted by Nielsen Online revealed that more and more users prefer visiting social networking sites or blogs instead of using their web-based email.

Actually three first places are occupied by Search systems (85.9%), General Internet Portals and Communities (85.2%), and Software Manufacturers (73.4%). According to the study, social networking and blogging sites visitors’ total amount reached 66.8% of the world's online population, making the fourth most popular category and leaving e-mail usage figures of 65.1% behind. These sites account for one in every 11 minutes spent online worldwide.

The most popular of the social networking sites globally is Facebook, dominating the segment in the UK, Italy, Australia, France, Spain and Switzerland. In the UK there is the greatest amount of users – 47%. In Italy it is 44%, in Australia – 38%, that’s more than in the US – just 33%. According to Nielsen , Facebook has the highest average time viewing per person than any other site (3 hours 10 minutes). The fastest growing group of Facebook users are those who aged 35 to 49 years old (more than 24.1 million users). The amount of visitors aged between 50 to 64 years old are almost twice as many (+13.6 million) compared to under 18 years old user (+7.3 million).

In the UK, social sites account for one in every 6 minutes the average internet user spends online. It was also found that UK users have the highest tendency to visit a social networking site on a mobile handset, ahead of US and French. The amount of UK mobile social networkers in 2008 grew three times as much compared with the previous year.

It should be noted that pornography is not even mentioned in the list of activities. But, as Nielsen doesn't share how it arrives at its numbers, that’s only a guess whether porn is actually less.