According to The Nielsen Company, consumers now spend more than five hours each month on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.  Globally, social networks and blogs are the most popular online category when ranked by average time spent online.

Given there is an estimated 200+ million people in the United States between ages 15 and 64 and 70% of those have access to the internet means that as a country...

WE WILL SPEND 8.5 BILLION HOURS THIS YEAR
ON SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES!

From a productivity perspective, that is roughly equal to 4.1 million full-time jobs, or the combined employee base of the Federal Government and Wal-Mart.

IS THIS A GOOD USE OF OUR TIME?

Probably not.  And so we are setting out to do something about it.  You can track our PROGRESS here.

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/global/led-by-facebook-twitter-global-time-spent-on-social-media-sites-up-82-year-over-year/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Stateshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Stateshttp://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=it_net_user_p2&idim=country:USA&tstart=631152000000&tunit=Y&tlen=18http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs041.htmhttp://www.hoovers.com/company/Wal-Mart_Stores_Inc/rrjiff-1.htmlhttp://www.rigorouspursuit.comshapeimage_2_link_0shapeimage_2_link_1shapeimage_2_link_2shapeimage_2_link_3shapeimage_2_link_4shapeimage_2_link_5shapeimage_2_link_6