Mexicans are social, Internet study finds

Country is in the top 10 for most social network users

Mexicans are among the world’s most social people when measured in terms of the number of citizens who connect to the Internet’s social networks.

A study by the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Cepal) found that Mexico is among the top 10 countries in the world for social network users, along with Argentina, Peru, Chile and Colombia.

Of the region’s Internet users, fully 78% participated in social networks in 2013, a much higher percentage than that of North America, where it was 65%, and way ahead of Western Europe with just 55%. This despite the fact that Internet penetration is much higher in those two regions than it is in Latin America.

The most popular network in the Latin America-Caribbean region was Facebook with 145 million unique visitors, followed by ShareThis with 93 million, Linked In with 38 million and Taringa and Twitter with 29 million each.

The region’s Internet users also spent more time on their networks, an average of 17 minutes per visit. The average user was connected to the Internet for 21.7 hours a month, slightly less than the global average of 22.8 hours.

In that respect, the U.S. and Europe were ahead of everyone else with 35.9 and 25.1 hours spent online every month, respectively.

As well as the social networks, electronic commerce and news sites were among the most popular in Latin America and the Caribbean. At the bottom of the scale were electronic banking and government sites, which enjoyed just 3.3% and 1.7% of total traffic, respectively.