Figures released by metrics firm Nielsen Online show that UK Internet users are spending more time on social media sites, and less time communicating on standard instant messenger and email.
In April 2008, British Internet users spent 4.0 billion minutes on "consumer generated media", which includes social networks like MySpace. This was an increase of 47% on the previous year.
Comparing April 2007 and 2008, 1.3 billion more minutes were spent on "Member communities", 0.5 million more minutes on online games, and 0.2 million more minutes on online video sites.
By comparison, instant messaging services lost a billion minutes.
This research ties into data published by rival net analysts Hitwise last year, which showed that more Brits now message each other within social networks than via webmail services.
It also supports the trend of the UK having a higher rate of participation in social sites such as Facebook and Bebo, than the US, Japan, Germany, Italy or France.
Social networks by and large give you the same functionality as standard email and instant messaging - with the difference that messaging is done within the closed member community, getting around a lot of issues with spam.
Alex Burmaster, Internet Analyst, Nielsen Online, comments: "Instant Messaging has already seen its mantle as the UKs most engaging online sector pass to Member Communities and it seems that the dominance of MSN Messenger as the most engaging brand is shortly to be ended by Facebook.
"This has been a seismic shift in a relatively short space of time and illustrates how social networks have fundamentally altered the way people communicate online.
"It will be interesting to see what further effects Facebook‟s IM application will have on the current players in the space.”
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