PCmag.com reported that the Nielsen Online market research firm claims that “blogs and social networking are consuming more online time than checking and writing personal e-mail” which I find astonishing! Is that because we are overwhelmed about this new frontier of social media and are trying to learn it thus spending hours on the various sites? Or are we moving towards replacing e-mail with more immediate forms of gratification such as Twitter, Facebook, and Linked In? Will we soon replace actual two-way communication between two individuals on e-mail with the online conversation medium of blogging? Really?
But it’s just for kids, right?
Nope! Not anymore! PCmag states, “Interestingly, growth in social networking is being driven not by the young, but by the middle-aged. The category of men and women aged 65 and above moving to social networking grew by 7 percent, Nielsen found, while the 2-17-year-old category dropped by 9 percent. The most popular age group with Facebook in terms of growth is the 35-49 category, which increased by 24.1 million people.”
Truly Global Phenomenon
And, if you think this data just applies to Americans, think again! The countries Nielsen tracked in its report included the United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Australia. Go figure!