Manic Monday

Monday morning traffic takes on a whole new meaning as StatMarket research indicates that’s the day Web usage is heaviest. While the majority of users start their workweek online, fewer are booting up their computers on the weekends, drawing the conclusion that most usage is conducted at the workplace.

“What we’re seeing is that people tend to surf the Internet during the workweek more than at home on the weekends,” said Geoff Johnston, vice president of product marketing for StatMarket. “This may imply that much of their personal Web use takes place at work. Or perhaps people have better things to do on the weekend than surf the Internet.”

The data, collected over a year, comes from more than 50 million Internet users a day to more than 125,000 sites worldwide using WebSideStory’s HitBox Enterprise and other HitBox outsourced Web visitor analysis services.

Supporting the theory that U.S. surfers spend more time online at work are the average traffic statistics for the week ending May 19, 2002 from Nielsen//NetRatings. The measurement system reports more than double the usage at work than at home (6 hours, 53 minutes per week as opposed to 3 hours, 30 minutes per week), but by far fewer people. There were almost 80 million active Internet users at home and 41 million at work.