The Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School has released its sixth annual "Surveying the Digital Future" report and the findings validate the momentum of social media communities. Among the highlights:

• More than a fifth of online community members take some kind of offline action related to the community.
• Two-thirds of people who are active in social causes online say they were unfamiliar with those causes before learning about them online.
• People reported meeting an average of 1.6 people in person whom they originally met online.
• "Almost all users report that the Internet has no effect on the time spent with close friends or family face-to-face."

That last point is important because online communities are frequently criticized for making people less socially interactive. In fact, 43% respondents to the survey said the Internet has increased the number of people they stay in contact with.

I expect this last number to grow as social media proliferates. The first decade of the Web was mostly a read-only affair. With one in eight Americans now maintaining a website, you can expect interaction to drive the next phase of growth. The belief that the Internet makes people more isolated is a myth.

Labels: research social_media

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