How do Central Europeans spend their time on the internet?

Krakow, Poland – Recently released data by Eurostat reveals some interesting trends and differences in the internet habits of Central Europeans.

According to the data released last week, 85% of individuals in the European Union used internet in the last three months. In that regard, only the Czech Republic was above the European average, with 87% of Czechs having surfed on the web in the last three months, while Slovakia (80%), Poland (78%) and Hungary (76%) were all slightly below average.

The highest internet-use rates can be found in Denmark (98%), Luxembourg (97%), the U.K. and the Netherlands (both 95%), while the lowest rates were recorded in Bulgaria (65%), Romania (71%) and Greece (72%).

So, for what purpose do they use the internet?

Europeans mainly used the internet to send/receive e-mails (73%) and to find information about goods and services (70%). Danes were the most likely to go on the web to send/receive e-mails (94%), far ahead of Czechs (80%) and the rest of Central Europe: 69% of Hungarians, 67% of Slovaks and 61% of Poles used the Internet to send or receive e-mails, both personal and professional.

Meanwhile, Dutch people used the most the internet to find information about goods and services (89%), compared to 77% of Czechs, 69% of Hungarians and 64% of Poles and Slovaks.

At the European level, other main reasons for spending time on the web was to watch video content from commercial or sharing services (57%), participate in social networks (56%), use banking facilities (54%) and look for information regarding health (52%).

A majority of Czechs go on the web for internet banking (62%) and to participate in social media (52%). More or less similar trends could be observed in Slovakia (respectively 50% and 60%). Comparatively, Internet banking is not that widespread in Poland (only 44% of internet users), and social media participation concerns a bare majority of Poland’s internet users (50%).

Hungarians, finally, stand out as the keenest to use Internet for social media (65%, one of the highest rates in the EU) and already appeared, in other studies, as the most frequent social media users in Europe.

Only a minority of Central Europeans use internet for telephoning: 45% of Hungarians, 42% of Czechs, 41% of Slovaks and 34% of Poles – compared to 67% of the population in Denmark.

Among Central European populations, Hungarians are the most likely to use the Internet to create an app (22%), while Slovaks are the most likely to use it to sell goods and services (24%).