Facebook 'beats phone for a fifth of Britons'

In the survey, the majority of people aged between 25 and 34 said they preferred contacting to their friends and family online instead of speaking to them directly.
The poll by TalkTalk, a broadband provider, also found that the landline phone has been comprehensively overtaken by mobiles. Nearly 40 per cent said they preferred using their mobile phone to communicate, compared to 22 per cent who liked to use their landlines.
The number of fixed line connections in the UK is also falling, as younger people increasingly opt for mobile phones and mobile broadband. The total volume of fixed line phone calls fell 20 per cent between 2005 and 2010.

A total of 10.7 million Britons still "phone home" once a week, while the majority of parents used their landlines to call children who had left home. Many, however, were concerned about making calls to mobile phones because they considered it to be too expensive, 'The Daily Telegraph' reported.

Women were twice as likely to talk to their mothers every day as they were there fathers, and twice as likely to text sisters than brothers, the poll revealed.

The survey, which interviewed more than 2,000 subjects, also found that people used smartphones 2.7 times per week to talk to colleagues, and 2.6 times per week to talk to friends. One in 20 men said they email their colleagues every hour.