In the USA, according to the Digital World Digital Life study, housewives spend around 38 percent of their spare time on the Internet. Bored British housewives, however, spend a whopping great 47 percent of their leisure time online.

That is more time online, by the way, than students (39 percent) and the unemployed (33 percent.)

So what are they all doing? Apparently, the answer would seem to be a little stereotypical: shopping. Which is good news for the online economy, with Brits accounting for something in the region of a billion pounds spent per month.

In general though, across all socio-economic groups and globally speaking, it is China that leads the way when it comes to spending free time online (oh the irony in that statement) with 44 percent. The people spending least leisure time online are the Danish with just a paltry 15 percent. The global average, I am informed, is 30 per cent.