Smartphones overtaking PCs in Web usage

Smartphone owners use their devices for a growing number of tasks, from checking email and viewing video content, to banking and shopping, to social media.

They also spend more time using them, according to a recent Nielsen study that says time spent by people on smartphones is overtaking PC usage in the U.S., Britain and Italy.

Americans spent an average of 34 hours on their smartphones during the month of December, nearly eight hours longer than they did on their PCs.

Nielsen says Americans spent time on their smartphones mostly accessing apps for social media (28 percent of the time) entertainment (8 percent) and playing games (9 percent).

Of course, using the device for communications (12 percent) was also essential to them. And traditional phone functions are still important to smartphone owners, according to Nielsen. Text messages took up 9 percent of total smartphone time, dialing the phone took up 3 percent, and checking the address book took up 2 percent, among U.S. users of Android devices.