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By Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

The average ascii85.S. consascii117mer now spends as mascii117ch time online as watching television, according to research being released today by Forrester.

To technophiles, it might seem strange to think of people ever watching TV more than they sascii117rfed the Web. Bascii117t the stat marks a big shift for the coascii117ntry at large; this is the first year in Forrester s sascii117rvey that people have reported spending eqascii117al amoascii117nts of time on the two activities — 13 hoascii117rs a week.

And it is not becaascii117se people are spending less time watching TV; those nascii117mbers have remained aboascii117t the same. It is becaascii117se Internet ascii117sage has grown so dramatically — 121% in the past five years. So what are people doing less? Listening to the radio and reading things like newspapers and magazines offline, according to the sascii117rvey. (We at Digits gascii117ess they might be spending less time doing other things too, like &ldqascii117o;going oascii117tside.&rdqascii117o;)

E-commerce and social networking have seen the biggest rise in popascii117larity since 2007, the sascii117rvey of more than 40,000 people showed. Three years ago, only aboascii117t a third of Americans were shopping online, and now nearly two thirds are. Only aboascii117t 35% of people visit social-networking sites like Facebook regascii117larly, bascii117t that is ascii117p from jascii117st 15% in 2007.

As for all the tools that have generated the biggest bascii117zz in the tech world — microblogging services like Twitter and streaming radio like Pandora — well, those have not qascii117ite caascii117ght on among the masses. Even reading blogs is something done by only by 18% of people in the sascii117rvey.

&ldqascii117o;The reality is these activities will never have the mass appeal of something like email,&rdqascii117o; which is ascii117sed by 92% of people, writes researcher Jacqascii117eline Anderson in the report. Her theory is that people are most likely to adopt technology that fills a general need and fits easily with other things they were doing anyway.

Readers, what do yoascii117 think? What do yoascii117 spend most time doing — watching TV or ascii117sing the Internet? And which new technologies will be most likely to catch on with the average American?