Survey: UK web users spend 30 hours a week online

Web users in Britain spend 30 hours surfing the internet every week, spending three hours a day online for leisure purposes and two hours a day using it for work, a new survey has revealed.

The research, carried out for comparison website uSwitch.com, reveals the substantial growth of broadband use in the UK over recent years, with over 80 per cent of respondents saying they do their banking online and nearly 95 per cent revealing they use the internet to shop.

In addition, only 33 per cent of respondents said their work does not involve using the internet in any way.

Jason Glynn, communications specialist at uSwitch.com, said: "This shows the huge impact the internet is having on life. Broadband is rapidly becoming a necessity - as important to our quality of life as gas or electricity."

Technology such as VoIP hardware is also growing in popularity, allowing more people to communicate cheaply using the internet.

Before the next general election, people with fixed home phone lines could have to pay a 50p tax each month to help fund the development of next-generation broadband services in the UK.