I was at a breakfast conference last week on social media in the higher education arena. One of the presenters came forth with the statistic that 60% of American adults have used social media, meaning that they have established at least one profile online.
Initially, I wasn’t horribly impressed by that number. Everyone has a television, numerous radios, a cell phone, most people have cable, nearly everyone has internet, and so on.
So I tried to find some statistics. What I found was quite enlightening. To reach 60% penetration in only five or six years is very rapid adoption. According to an article in the New York Times (see the accompanying chart), it took many more years for other society-changing adoptions to occur. Electricity, cars, and radio took 15 – 20 years in the early 20th century. More recently, color televisions, microwave ovens, and even the Internet itself weren’t at 60% penetration for fifteen years!
At 60%, online social networks are well beyond the early adoption phase. And much more rapidly than the Internet. Huh.
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