Indians spend more time on social media than emails: Survey

Mumbai: Indians spend more time on social networking sites than on checking e-mails, a survey by an online software security company has found. The survey says an average Indian spends 9.7 hrs a week on social networking sites like Facebook and chatting on other applets, while the same for email stands at a poor 6.1 hrs. According to the survey, one in every two Indians will start showing signs of "Internet withdrawal" within the first three hours if they stay offline. A whopping eight out of ten surveyed said they cannot do without the Internet for more than 24 hrs. The survey, commissioned by Norton, was conducted in February with over 500 respondents in the 18-64 age bracket who are active Internet users. As many as 48 percent of the respondents were females. It showed online Indians spend an average of 8.4 hrs a day or up to 58 hrs a week online, which is mroe than half of their waking hours. General browsing tops the average hours spent with 12.9 hrs, which is followed by social networking (9.7 hrs), e-mails (6.1 hrs), financial activities (4.7 hrs) and uploading/downloading (2.9 hrs), the added. PTI