- The percentage of people who communicate via social networking sites, create personal profiles or create and share content online has reached 50% (89m) of people across the 10 countries surveyed
- These social network users spend an impressive 14.5 hours online each week and 38% are heavy internet users spending 16+ hours online each week
- Two thirds (67%) of all European social network users use the internet everyday of the week with 46% claiming they could not live without it
- The data highlights that social networking aside, these users go online mainly for entertainment and to communicate with email (88%), instant messaging (54%), watching film, TV or video clips (38%) and music downloads (38%) amongst their most popular web activities
- A massive 87% of social network users state that as a result of the internet they are staying in touch with friends and relatives more, well over half (59%) think they have chosen better products, 57% have booked more holidays or made travel arrangements and 50% are better able to manage their finances online
- 84% of social networkers use a broadband connection and over half (53%) of these broadband users are wireless
- Regarding websites visited news (66%), local information (54%), music (54%), banking and finance (53%) and travel (52%) are the most popular website types amongst these social network users
- When researching or considering a product or service, 66% of social network users consider personal recommendations important, with websites of wellknown brands (56%) and both online customer (53%) and expert (52%) reviews and 46% admit to changing their mind on what brand to buy after online research
- 88% of these social network users shop online, buying an average of 10 items each in a period of six months and spending €662 on these items