Go online for fun and to pass the time on a typical day % of all adults (18+) in different age cohorts who answered "yes" to this question: Did go online yesterday for no particular reason, just for fun or to pass the time?
Americans are increasingly going online just for fun and to pass the time. On any given day, 53% of all the young adults ages 18-29 go online for no particular reason except to have fun or to pass the time. Many of them go online in purposeful ways, as well. But the results of a survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project show that young adults’ use of the internet can at times be simply for the diversion it presents. Indeed, 81% of all young adults in this age cohort report they have used the internet for this reason at least occasionally.
These results come in the larger context that internet users of all ages are much more likely now than in the past to say they go online for no particular reason other than to pass the time or have fun. Some 58% of all adults (or 74% of all online adults) say they use the internet this way. And a third of all adults (34%) say they used the internet that way “yesterday” – or the day before Pew Internet reached them for the survey.1 Both figures are higher than in 2009 when we last asked this question and vastly higher than in the middle of the last decade.
Go online for fun and to pass the time on a typical day  | % of all adults (18+) in different age cohorts who answered "yes" to this question: Did go online  | yesterday for no particular reason, just for fun or to pass the time?  | 60%  | 53%  | 50%  | 40%  | 37%  | All adults  | 34%  | 18-29  | 30%  | 30-49  | 27%  | 50-64  | 20%  | 16%  | 65+  | 12%  | 12%  | 10%  | 10%  | 5%  | 2%  | 0%  | asho abon  | asho abon acon  | acon aspess abbs  | aspess abbs apps  | abbs apps acblo  | apps acblo abor  | acblo abor aspes  | abor aspes ache  | aspes ache acto  | ache acto hops  | acto hops  | abon acon aspess  | Source: The Pew Research Center's Internet 26 2011 & American For Life Project tracking for surveys, users=851. 2000-2011 Most  | recent survey conducted Research July 25-August 26 2011 For entire Project survey N tracking for internet users=851. Interviews  | were conducted in Spanish and 25-August English on landline phones and cell phones. The margin of error for the  | internet user sample Spanish is 3.7 percentage English points 