Much of Latin America's online community shares similar habits to other connected parts of the globe, but the priorities of Internet users might come as a surprise.

Latin America is gradually increasing its connectivity with the global Internet, though much remains to be done, as Latin Post has reported. A vast amount of connections so far have been made through mobile Internet, as fixed-line broadband remains out of reach for many in the region.

While there's still a gap between broadband wireless coverage and the proportion of Latin Americans actually using the net, connectivity in all forms is inevitably growing. Latin Americans now represent about 10 percent of the global Internet audience, after experiencing about 17 percent growth since 2013.

Given that context, here are the most popular ways Latin Americans with home and work broadband connections used the Internet last year, as measured by analytics company comScore.

Services

Services like downloading sites, web hosting and email were the top drivers of traffic in Latin America in 2015, with approximately 98 percent of all of the region's netizens accessing those services on a regular basis. Latin Americans use downloading sites and email more than other websites that often appear at the top of other regions' activities, such as accessing social networks or searching via Google.

Besides the basic need to connect and communicate with people through email, the digital services sector is driven by Latin America's penchant for online piracy. Nearly half of Internet users in South America have used pirating sites or services. As Latin Post previously reported, 110.5 million individuals accessed cyberlockers (file sharing services), peer-to-peer networks or live IPTV rebroadcasting -- i.e., streaming services -- last year.

With less stable, slower connections, high speed services like Bit Torrent make up only part of the region's piracy penchant. In fact, connections with file-sharing hosts -- otherwise known as downloading services -- made up approximately 62.7 million unique users, or 28 percent of all South Americans with Internet connections.

Social Media

Of course, social media is big in Latin America as it is everywhere else around the globe.

In Latin America at the end of 2015, 91 percent of the online broadband community used social media. As Portada Online pointed out, despite social networking's universal and growing popularity, the ranking of social media over search and navigation still makes Latin America an outlier. Google and other browsers are usually at the top of other regions' comScore rankings.

Search and Browsing

The use of social networks was virtually equal with the use of search engines, which placed third. Just over 90 percent of Latin America's connected population habitually uses Google. However, there is a big gap in the amount of time spent between the second and third place activities: Latin Americans use search services for about a tenth of the amount of time they spend on social media.

News, Information, and the Relevancy Gap 

The bottom of the comScore ranking list for Latin America may have been even more interesting than the top.

Connected Latin Americans used the Internet for News and Information about two thirds of the time. It was the same for usage of online directories, maps and other resources to help navigate daily life. Those two activities ranked sixth and seventh place, behind entertainment.

This data reflects and further supports a study on the region recently released by GSMA, which Latin Post recently reported. In the study, the global mobile association found a persistent gap between mobile broadband coverage and connectivity. The group suggested four barriers as causes behind the discrepancy.

Besides affordability and access, the biggest factor the study found keeping the Internet from becoming an attractive option for Latin Americans was the lack of relevant, local content.

GSMA found that less than 30 percent of Internet content accessed by Latin Americans was in local languages, and much of that content, like entertainment, didn't help people with their daily economic lives.

The Internet connects the globe, but those in highly connected countries often forget that it's not truly "global" yet.