Heavy Internet users spend less time with their partners and children and are less likely to help with household chores, a new study suggests.

Statistics Canada says people who spend more than an hour of personal time a day on the Web tended to stay at home more and showed less interest in outdoor activities than non-users.

They also spend less time sleeping, relaxing, resting or thinking and spend a "striking" amount of time alone.

"Heavy Internet users were alone nearly two hours longer than non-users, even when comparing people from similar-sized households," the agency says.

The study said spouses and children in particular "bore the brunt," with heavy users spending about half an hour less with loved-ones than non-users.

Heavy users also spend an average of 33 minutes a day less on domestic chores.

According to the study, the timing of Internet use also mattered, with weekend use associated with even greater declines in time spent with friends and other people outside the household than weekday use.

Heavy users were less likely than non-users to say they knew "most" or "many" of the people in their neighbourhood.

They were also more likely to describe their sense of belonging to their community as "somewhat" or "very" weak.

The study also found that heavy Internet users were nearly eight years younger on average than non-users, while six out of every 10 heavy users were men.

Just under one-half worked at a paid job, and students and the unemployed constituted a higher proportion of heavy users than non-users.

StatsCan says Internet users were still interested in traditional media and spent the same amount of time as non-users (around two hours a day) watching television.

Internet users also spend more time reading books and newspapers than non-users and reported less stress than those who did not use the Web.

The study formed part of a Statistics Canada report entitled 'The Internet: Is It Changing the Way Canadians Spend Their Time?' published August 2, 2006.

The report, which used data from a 2005 general social survey on time use, included daily diaries of 20,000 Canadians aged 15 and older.