A recent survey by the UK Online Measurement company (UKOM) has revealed some interesting statistics when it comes to UK Internet usage. The survey concluded that the average user spends 22 hours and 15 minutes online every month. This is 65% more than was recorded three years ago. The survey also split "The Internet" into 85 different categories in order to work out how people divide their online time. The top ten categories are as follows:
| Rank | Leading sector by total / share of UK Internet time - April 2010 | Share of UK Internet time – April 2010 | Share of UK Internet time – April 2007 | Relative Change in Share of UK Internet Time |
| 1 | Social Networks/Blogs | 22.7% | 8.8% | 159% |
| 2 | | 7.2% | 6.5% | 11% |
| 3 | Games | 6.9% | 5.9% | 15% |
| 4 | Instant Messaging | 4.9% | 14.2% | -66% |
| 5 | Classifieds/Auctions | 4.7% | 5.0% | -6% |
| 6 | Portals | 4.0% | 3.7% | 10% |
| 7 | Search | 4.0% | 4.1% | -3% |
| 8 | Software Info/Products | 3.4% | 5.3% | -36% |
| 9 | News | 2.8% | 1.5% | 84% |
| 10 | Adult | 2.7% | 2.8% | -3% |
| - | Other | 36.8% | 42.2% | -13% |
The biggest change here is shown by social networking sites, with a huge 159% increase over the past three years. This, along with other things, has caused Instant Messaging to drop 66% over the three year period. However, e-mail was expected to have fallen in market share over the three years but has in fact increased by 11%. Perhaps the biggest surprise is the 3% drop in online searching; our current "Googling" culture makes this figure seem very low.
This is just one of the many impacts Social Networking websites have had upon the rest of the Internet. Many other sections of the Internet are missing out because so much of our online time is taken up by these sites and so many users simply go online with the sole purpose of checking these pages and nothing else.