Italians’ digital habits have been disrupted by the pandemic, perhaps once and for all. In fact, the effects of this forced digitization are beginning to have structural implications: The time spent on the internet now travels approximately 3 hours a day And the spread of work and distance learning applications. However, the gap remains large with other large countries in terms of digital penetration.

These are some of the indicators emerging from the recent study on Internet audiences ComScore, A NASDAQ-listed company that specializes in measuring and planning large-scale digital, television and advertising audiences. The data collected in December 2020 in our country witnesses a significant increase in Italians’ tendency to surf the Internet: the number of users using the web has reached a high level. 40.6 million, With penetration into 73% of the adult population. Compared to the same month in 2019, the increase was 3%, but this share should not lead to excessive celebrations.

If we compare this performance with the performance of more advanced countries in terms of digitization, it turns out that the data of countries such as United States of America (90%), United kingdom (86%) e Spain (84%) are out of reach. Comscore explains a gap that is influenced by infrastructure shortcomings Phenomena of social and economic marginalization That denies access to the network for a segment of the population is still very large. It should be noted that those who surf the Internet instead do so more intensively than they have in the past, that is, they access more content and services.

In December 2020, nine categories of content recorded an audience of over 30 million unique monthly visitors: entertainmentAnd the News and informationAnd the social networkAnd the selling by piecesAnd the LifestyleAnd the Instant messageAnd the TechniqueAnd the sport H The greeting. Audiences for content categories related to changes due to the epidemic and lockdown are those that recorded the most significant increases: for example, the number of visitors in the education category increased by 69%, those in the government category by 60% and those in the health category by 31%.

The Applications boom. Among those boasting the highest growth rates, in terms of users, there is an explosion of those who work (Difference H Zoom inThose for distance learning)Google Classroom) And those related to public utility services (see application I, Which in December 2020 reached 9.3 million users Job ID That reached 7 million).

Another very important indicator of Italians’ increasing tendency to surf the Internet is Time spent on the Internet. In December of last year the index was recorded Two hours and 46 minutes Average day per user, with a growth rate of 26% compared to the same month last year.

The largest increase (+ 38%) was recorded in the younger population groups (18-24 years) who spend an average of 3 hours 34 minutes per day online, compared to 3 hours and 5 minutes in the 25-34 age group ( + 29% year over year) and 2 hours 35 minutes for more than 35 seconds (+ 19%). In-app traffic now accounts for 73% of the total time spent and on the Google and Facebook platforms (to which the most used apps belong, from Whatsapp to Instagram) more than half (50.4%) of the ‘online’ time is now spent.

“In recent months, the network has provided essential tools to address the problems posed by the lockdown, while online use of public utility services has increased to address economic and health uncertainties – Comments Fabrizio Angelini, CEO of Sensemakers which represents Comscore exclusively for Italy – if a very large segment of the population does not have access to the Internet, on the other hand, this slows the development of the country and overcomes some critical social issues related to the epidemic, on the other hand the hand gave the latter a boost Unusual for a more advanced and dynamic network use. “