Keep a close eye on the future. That has been the message to come out of the trend reports on digital, as online behaviour continues to change and evolve rapidly. Published in March’s issue of Marketing magazine, the infographic below shows some of the changes in Australia’s online behaviour between 2010 and 2011.

Drawn from TNS’ Digital Life study and Nielsen’s Online Ratings, the data shows shifts in the activities consumers engage in during their leisure time. As has been well documented, social media use is surging, up by 127% during 2011 and increasing its share of leisure time pursuits by 36%. Australians now spend 9.3 hours per week on social networks. In contrast, email is down 18% year on year, to 3.7 hours of leisure use per week.

Gaming is on the rise, up from 2.1 hours per week to 3.5 hours per week for the average Australian. Weekly gaming on social networks, online gaming sites and gaming consoles is heading towards one in two online Australians, highlighting the gamification trend as one to watch.

Time spent shopping grew 21% to account for 1.7 hours of our online leisure time. On a selff-reported basis, 17% of retail purchases were made via online retailers, with more buying from online retail brands than brand/ manufacturer sites. Amazon was the leading mass merchandising retailer in terms of traffic according to Nielsen.

Multimedia use continues to grow with online video now accessed weekly by 52% of online Australians (81% of sophisticated users). Music streaming is now accessed weekly by 43% of online Aussies.

This graphic draws on TNS’ online consumer segmentation to contrast how sophisticated internet users (‘Influencers’) against basic internet users (‘Functionals’).