Social Media Is F**king Addictive

by David Armano on 16 July, 2010 - 23:32

If you haven't seen it already, the third installment of the infamous slideshow, "What The F**ck Is Social Media?" has been published over at Slideshare by Marta Kagan. Since I'm a sucker for good visual communication or any good communication for that matter, I highly recommend flipping through it as it's both informative and entertaining. And it contains a few updated stats:

1. If Facebook were a country, it would be the third most populated in the world, ahead of the United States. 
2. If Facebook were a country, it would be the third most populated in the world, ahead of the United States. Only China & India are more populated. 
3. 500 BILLION. The number of minutes spent on Facebook per month. 
4. 500 BILLION. The number of minutes spent on Facebook per month. LAST YEAR, THAT NUMBER WAS A MEASLY 150 BILLION. 
5. The amount of content 25 BILLION. (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) shared each month on Facebook. THAT’S MORE THAN 6X LAST YEAR’S VOLUME.
6. 500 BILLION. The number of peer influence impressions Americans generate per year via social media. 
7. 500 BILLION. The number of peer influence impressions Americans generate per year via social media. 62% of those impressions come from Facebook.
8. 24 HOURS. The amount of video uploaded to YouTube every minute. 
9. 24 HOURS. The amount of video uploaded to YouTube every minute. THAT’S MORE THAN DOUBLE LAST YEAR’S VOLUME. 
10. 2 BILLION. The number of YouTube videos viewed per day. 
11. 2 BILLION. The number of YouTube videos viewed per day. THAT’S TWICE AS MANY AS LAST YEAR. 11
12. 4 BILLION. The number of images hosted on Flickr. 
13. 4 BILLION. The number of images hosted on Flickr. THAT’S 13X MORE THAN THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
14. ONE-THIRD. The proportion of women aged 18-34 who check Facebook when they first wake up—even before going to the bathroom. 
15. NINETY-FIVE. The percentage of companies using LinkedIn to find and attract employees. 14
16. NINETY-FIVE. The percentage of companies using LinkedIn to find and attract employees. 59% use Facebook and 42% use Twitter. 
17. 1 in 6. The number of marriages last year between people who met through social media. 15
18. 1 in 6. The number of marriages last year between people who met through social media. THAT’S MORE THAN TWICE THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO MET AT BARS, CLUBS, AND OTHER SOCIAL EVENTS COMBINED. 
19. 27 MILLION. The average number of “tweets” per day on Twitter. 16
20. 27 MILLION. The average number of “tweets” per day on Twitter. THAT’S 8X LAST YEAR’S VOLUME. 
21. 7 HOURS. The time it took for LeBron James to amass his first 150,000 Twitter followers. 
22. 7 HOURS. The time it took for LeBron James to amass his first 150,000 Twitter followers. It took Bill Gates 8 hours to reach 100,000. 

And of course I had something to say about social media. I stated the obvious:

Social media is the crack cocaine of the Internet. We want it, we need it, and we go into withdrawal when we don't get enough of it.

For me, that pretty much says it all. Translation: it's here to stay and we're all going to have to get used to getting our fix as part of our daily lives.

Original Post: http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2010/07/addictive.html