American consumers spend more than seven hours a week looking for and viewing content online. But surprisingly, in a recent study,  consumers more often used “related content” links than social media to discover new content.The study, conducted and published by the content discovery platform nRelate, examined the behavior of 2,377 online content readers in October of this year. It found that 76% clicked on links to related stories for more information, and the same percentage said that they did not look to friends on social media for content recommendations. In addition, 31% of respondents claimed that search engines were not a primary tool of content discovery for them.Interestingly, after finishing an article, 34% of the surveyed consumers said they are likely to click on a link to another article, but only 15% would click on a video. However, 39% indicated they are more likely to click on an article if there is an image associated with it.Overall, Americans read three to four articles per viewing session and watch two to three videos (this number is higher among males for both articles and videos). And 51% said they read and clicked on content delivered via email newsletter.Given these findings, online publishers would be wise to look into audience development and content discovery tools. But be careful — some restrictions apply based on the type and quality of your content.