Nielsen released a really great infographic the other day, going over a variety of U.S. media usage statistics, including mobile internet use. Among the stats they had gathered was how folks spend time on the internet using their phone, what phones were popular, which mobile video sites were the most visited, and who were sending the most texts. The vast majority of mobile internet time went towards e-mail, which took up 38.5%, followed distantly by social networking at 10.7% then news at 7.2%. They heavy slant towards e-mail is great news for RIM, who have built BlackBerry on e-mail from day one, though some might argue that the experience on other platforms is becoming roughly equivalent.

Nielsen also illustrated the numbers they had published earlier about OS market share (iPhone at 28.6%, BlackBerry at 26.1% and Android at 25.8%), but what was really telling about that graphic is that 69.1% of the total U.S. mobile market still consists of feature phones; that leaves a massive amount of opportunity for every smartphone manufacturer. Nielsen also said that the average smartphone owner had 27 apps installed, though we’ve seen that figure before too.

Elsewhere in the infographic, Nielsen outlined the top ten most popular mobile phones in the U.S. I think it’s a little fishy that they’re willing to fold in multiple devices in the BlackBerry 8500 and 8300 series as single entries, but every iPhone gets its own, but take it as you will.

1. iPhone 3GS
2. Samsung Intensity
3. Motorola Droid
4. BlackBerry Curve 8520 / 8530
5. iPhone 4
6. iPhone 3G
7. BlackBerry Curve 8300 / 8310 / 8320 / 8330 / 8350i
8. LG enV3
9. Samsung Smooth
10. BlackBerry Bold 9700

There were some interesting numbers on SMS text message usage too, illustrating how the staggering majority of texts sent and received were by those in the 13 – 17 age bracket. Women also talk on the phone and text more than men, but is that really a surprise?

Anyway, the whole thing is a pretty interesting run-down of U.S. media consumption. Does their take on mobile internet usage reflects how you use your smartphone? You can take a look at the free PDF over here.