When it comes to Australians' social media habits, there is one clear winner. And it's not our time or attention, which are increasingly corralled by various platforms.
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More than half of people say Facebook is their favourite site, strides ahead of other platforms. About 95 per cent of Australians have an account, and use Facebook on average 12.5 hours a week, up 4 hours on last year.
The average number of times Australians look at Facebook is steady at 32 times a week, but the amount of minutes spent there each time has increased from 17 to 24.
These numbers come from the 2016 Sensis Social Media Report. Sensis surveyed 81 businesses and 50 consumers in the ACT, a relatively small sample size.
University of Canberra social media academic Lubna Alam said the numbers reflected a worldwide trend in which a very high proportion of people use Facebook.
But she said it was alarming to see the rise in time people were spending online on Facebook, suggesting that addiction to social media was also on an upwards trend.
It was also important to look at engagement - calculated in terms of total likes, shares and comments, divided by number of followers - which can often show a very different picture in terms of people's preferred site, Dr Alam said.
The same went for breakdowns in ages, which again show a different picture between younger and older generations in social media habits, she said.
The Sensis study found 18 to 29 year olds were the heaviest users, with 90 per cent now on social media, compared to the all-ages average of 69 per cent.
Dr Alam said Facebook was a trendsetter early on, which contributed to its ongoing popularity. [People are] very used to using Facebook, sharing and commenting, and it's very easy and simple to use."
Overall, frequency of social media use is on the up, with 57 per cent now accessing social media almost every day (up four per cent), and more than a quarter checking social media more than five times a day.
Canberrans have not managed to wrest themselves free of the social media grip, accessing Facebook 51 times a week. And 92 per cent access the internet daily, second only to the Northern Territory at 93 per cent.
Across Australia, Instagram has almost doubled its reach since 2013, to 31 per cent. Twitter, at 19 per cent, and Google+, at 10 per cent, lag behind.
Canberrans are also big fans of Instagram. The capital is the most likely of all states and territories to use the photo sharing app and the equal most likely to use Google+.
But they are the least likely to use social media when commuting.
ACT residents are also the most likely to have seen their social media friends in real life in the past year - 48 per cent compared to the national average of 39 per cent.
Sensis general manager digital Alice Mentiplay said the time spent on Facebook had jumped dramatically over the past year. It was therefore not surprising to see a rise in people worried about spending too long on social media, she said, with more than one in three women and a quarter of men feeling concerned.
The study surveyed 800 Australian consumers and 1100 businesses and found some difference between the sexes. Men, for example, are much more likely to use social media at work and twice as likely to use social media on the toilet.
"It's also interesting to see when and where [Australians] use social media. That again reflects that these tools are commonplace and embedded in our lives more than we think," Dr Alam said.
