Americans spend 23 hours per week online, texting

Report says 54 per cent of survey respondents said they have tried to decrease their reliance on technology in the past year

Addicted to Internet! An average user in the US spends a staggering 23 hours a week emailing, texting and using social networking sites and other forms of online communication, new research has found.

The number equals to nearly 14 per cent of the total time in a week and all that time is taking a toll on users, researchers say.

However, 54 per cent of survey respondents said they have tried to decrease their reliance on technology in the past year in favour of more in-person contact, 'BusinessNewsDaily' reported.

As many as 62 per cent of web users in the US say they hope to be able to decrease tech usage in the coming year so they can communicate face-to-face.

However, over the past year, users have increased the time they have spent using social networks, emailing, watching online videos, playing online games and reading or writing blogs.

The time spent by Americans each day on online radio, newspapers and magazines has stayed the same over the past year, researchers said.

Emailing was the biggest time consumer, the researchers found.

Respondents said they spend nearly eight hours a week checking emails. They also said they spend nearly seven hours a week on Facebook and five hours a week on YouTube.

Moreover, users spend nearly the same amount of time each week on Google+ and Twitter.

More than 75 per cent of users checked email, texts, Facebook and Instagram at least one time a day. Other new platforms are growing in popularity as well.

"Photo-focused sites, particularly suited to mobile, seem to be especially popular," the eMarketer report said.

"Instagram saw 70 per cent of users logging in daily, and the relatively new Snapchat was just behind, with 67 per cent of its users logging in daily," the report said.

Two-thirds of users also said they check YouTube once a day, while nearly 60 per cent check Google+ daily. Just 40 per cent of LinkedIn users check the site daily, but nearly half check it several times a week.