Stay-at-home mums love the internet

The results of a research study commissioned by the competitions website Winmonkey.co.uk and released this week are attracting attention in the UK media.
The tabloid The Sun reports that a quarter of those studied log on to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter for more hours than they spend looking after their children – with some staying on the Web for more than five hours a day.
Over 80 percent of all full-time mothers admitted going online during the day – and 79 percent spent more time at their PCs than they did cooking and cleaning, the study discovered.
The most popular sites were social networks, but almost a quarter of the housewives interviewed revealed that they spent at least some of the day on online gambling sites.
The study of 1 466 women found that chat forums, social networking sites and gaming sites were the main Internet attractions. Stay-at-home mums spent an average of two and a quarter hours online a day. Over forty percent said they used the Internet more than three hours a day and 18 percent spent more than five hours a day online.
Almost three quarters of mums quizzed said they spent more time surfing the web than they did watching TV, and 79 percent spent more time on the Internet than they did doing household chores, including cooking.
In related news, a recent survey by Yahoo found 65 percent of mums use the Internet as main source of information, rather than simply wasting time online.