The internet was used mainly to communicate with others – 85 percent of people used the internet for telephoning, video calls, or instant messaging, and 80 percent for e-mails. Internet usage for communication has increased, with online calling and messaging growing faster than e-mail correspondence (+14 pp and +7 pp compared with 2019, respectively).

This information comes from data on use of ICT in households and by person recently published by Eurostat. The article presents a handful of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained article on digital economy and society statistics - households and individuals.

Other popular activities reported were finding information about goods and services (75 percent), watching TV or videos (73 percent) and internet banking (67 percent).

In contrast, only 10 percent of people used internet for online consultations or voting to define civic or political issues, 12 percent used it for learning activities in formal education, 16 percent expressed an opinion on civic or political issues on websites or in social media, 17 percent did an online course and 17 percent took part in learning for private purposes.