Today I came across a News.com story that I thought was extremely interesting: “Poll finds 30 percent use Net just for fun.” Pew Internet & American Life Project surveyed 1,931 Internet users in November and December of 2005, and 30 percent of the respondents said that they went online “for no particular reason” on the previous day. This is a sharp increase from the year before – only 21 percent responded with a similar answer in a November 2004 survey.

According to Deborah Fallows of Pew, “This tells us the Internet is another place where people increasingly go to while away their time or just to hang out.” So, what else are people doing on the Internet? “When it comes to other online pursuits, Pew said that sending or receiving e-mail ranked highest with 52 percent of Internet users saying they did this on a typical day. Using a search engine ranked second with 38 percent, while reading news online was third with 31 percent.”

I spend my day doing all of the online activities mentioned above, but if I were to break it down into percentages, reading news online would take up the biggest part of my pie. What online activity (or non-activity) takes up the majority of your time when you’re online?