Americans Register Dip In Social Media Activity

Proportionate to other online activities, new research shows that the time U.S. consumers spend on social media sites is actually declining.

The United States -- which has been the most dominant national market for social media consumption over the last three years -- dropped from 30% of all time spent online to 27%, according to new data from Experian Marketing Services. By contrast, time spent shopping online grew year-on-year, Experian found. In fact, U.S .consumers spent 9% of their Web time shopping in 2012. After analyzing US browsing data for mobile devices, email accounted for the largest time spent on average. Consumption of news content also increased among US consumers who devoted 4% of their online time to news. Overall, e-mail made up 23% of time spent on mobile devices during the first quarter of the year, while social networking accounted for 15% of consumers’ mobile time.