Latest numbers from market researcher ComScore show that internet users are spending more time on Facebook than they do on Google (and that includes Google sites such as YouTube, GMail and Google News). While the difference was slight (9.9% for Facebook v. 9.6% for Google), the trend is, er, trending in Facebook’s favor. ComScore numbers from the same month in 2009 showed Facebook and Google each accounting for less than 5% of total time spent online, while 2007 numbers were 2% Facebook and 4% Google. It’s also worth noting that Yahoo, which accounted for around 12% of ComScore’s rankings in 2007 and 2009, dropped to 9.1% this year.
While Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg must be merrily whipping his skippy at this news, some are suggesting that the results are skewed due to Facebook’s ‘stickiness’, not unlike Michael Corleone’s famous complaint in Godfather III: “Just when I think I’m out, they pull me back in.” As in, tending to one’s Facebook routine can often seem like having a lawn that needs to be mowed afresh every 15 minutes. Or is that just us?
For others, Facebook is not just benignly evil, but (supposedly) downright dangerous. A certain celebrity psychotherapist claims that visiting the site is “a lot like playing slots… you never know when you’re going to get another message or comment or status update… you know if you keep at it, you’ll get that reward.” Personally, we think comparing a progressive jackpot with yet another link to yet another JPEG of Aunt Millie’s cat is a bit of a stretch, but hey, if it gets those anti-gambling Christian right-wingers off our back and onto Zuckerberg’s, bring on the pitchforks and torches!
