Mobile computing has rubbed on in a big way with Australians, a new media report said, as shown by the giant leap in local wireless online engagement, which grew by 189 per cent in the last 12 months ending in August.

The new Nielsen report also indicated that in August alone, the broad internet sphere in the country had generated total views of 42 billion pages, with around 29 billion minutes clocked by local surfers in the month.

For users who prefer accessing websites through smartphones or tablets, the growth is more spectacular in the same month, Nielsen said, with eight percent of spike in page views from the July.

Roughly 300 million web pages were browsed by Aussies in August using mobile gadgets, Nielsen reported.

The trend only enhanced previous forecasts that mobile computing is rapidly altering the overall computing landscape, analysts said, clear indication of which is the climb in popularity of Apple and Android handsets and the steep decline of conventional computing tools such as desktop and laptop computers.

The snapshot offered by Nielsen also cemented the continuing global shift of online behaviour towards social media-oriented websites, chief of player of which is Facebook.

Facebook has reported last week that the site now counts more one billion 'active members' who regularly log and linger for a number of minutes each month. In Australia, the latter claim is true, Nielsen said, as some 31 per cent of the current Aussies population are believed to be using Facebook in a constant fashion.

On Facebook alone, these users, described by Nielsen as Gen Y and aged 18 to 34, spend an average of seven minutes and 40 seconds, which is the longest time in the month devoted by Australians for a specific website.

The most viewed site locally, however, is not Facebook but its rival, Google, the Nielsen report said.

On all the global sites, such as Google, Facebook, Ninemsn, YouTube, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Wikipedia and eBay, that have attracted the most hits every month, the same Gen Y is believed to invest around 86 hours on internet time every month, according to Nielsen managing director for media Matt Bruce.

This group, Mr Bruce added, can be divided into two and the younger segment, aged 18 to 24, is seen as spending more time online.

"An interesting behavioural divide emerges when examining two distinct segments of the Gen Y generation, with the younger demographic, online 18 to 24-year-olds, having much lower online engagement compared to their older cohorts across average page views, average sessions and time spent," the Nielsen executive was quoted by B&T.com as saying on Monday.

Gen Y, Nielsen said, is considered as reflective of the exploding mobile computing market in Australia, with about 71 per cent of the age segment thought to own smartphones.

The same survey also pointed to Apple, Nokia and Samsung as three of the dominant brands preferred by local mobile gadget buyers.