Only 24 percent of Internet users access social networking sites with a mobile phone, according to a new survey (pdf) done in the U.K. last month. The general thrust of the survey was to determine how big a role social networking plays in online usage. “Social networking does not dominate life online, unlike the image that some of the more enthusiastic media coverage might imply,” Leslie Haddon wrote in the report for the Communications Department at the London School of Economics, which was commissioned on behalf of Vodafone (NYSE: VOD).

Highlights from the survey:
—Out of 709 internet users surveyed, 43 percent used a mobile device to check email or access web sites.
—At least 18 percent never used email on a cellphone and 25 percent never visited a web site.
—Only 7 percent of the respondents access social networking sites everyday on a mobile device. And while those aged 18 to 24 skewed highest, with 20 percent of them accessing social networking sites everyday on their mobile device, 37 percent checked e-mail everyday and 32 percent visited web sites.