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Nielsen Online have announced today that Americans spend more time surfing the internet than anyone else in the world, with users clocking up an average of nearly 28 hours a month. Projected forward, this means the average resident of the USA will spend nearly two and a half years online during their lifetime.

The figures for March show the US leading the way for time spent online, with the average user spending almost an hour a day surfing. This obsession with the net sees Americans spending almost double the amount of time online than users in Australia, who spend only 14 and a half hours a month working, playing, surfing and shopping online.

The data shows the rest of the world has yet to become quite so fixated with the world wide web - Europe lags behind, with the French spending just under 20 hours connected to the net. Spain comes in third with the average Spaniard spending just under 18 hours online. Users in the UK spend 17 and a half hours online, just above Germany and Italy on 16 hours.

But the US may soon see another nation vying for the top spot however. China has overtaken the West in its love of the internet and is now home to more internet users than the US. The comparatively unfettered internet, while still subject to certain amounts of censorship, is proving more attractive to Chinese than ever, with 61 per cent more people going online in the past year - there were more than 221 million Chinese online at the end of February, compared to the 137 million surfing at the start of 2007.

Video-sharing websites are the most popular.