Russians are the world's most active users of social networking sites in terms of time they spend there, according to a study by digital market measurement service comScore Media Metrix.

In August 2010, 74.5% of all Russian Internet users, or 34.5 million people, visited at least one social networking site.

With an average of 9.8 hours per visitor during the month, Russians spent more than double the worldwide average of 4.5 hours per visitor on social networks, ranking it No. 1 among all countries in social networking engagement.

Israel ranked second with an average of 9.2 hours per visitor, followed by Turkey with 7.6 hours.

Russia's most popular social network is VKontakte, which has 27.8 million visitors each month, followed by Odnoklassniki with 16.7 million visitors.

World leader Facebook in Russia is ranked fifth with 4.5 million visitors, but its audience has grown 376% in the past year - the highest rate in the country.

MOSCOW, October 21 (RIA Novosti)