I’ll admit it: I’m not the most social person you’ll ever meet. In fact, it seems like a lot of Americans aren’t all that social, compared, at least, to people from South Korea, Brazil, China, and Mexico. This is one of the findings of a new Ipsos Insight study.
Yet, to be fair, Ipsos was studying social networking, not overall “friendliness,” so the research firm hasn’t labeled all U.S. citizens as disagreeable. On the other hand, the social networking stats were pretty conclusive; 55 percent of the South Koreans Ipsos interviewed had been to a networking site in the past 30 days, compared to just 24 percent of Americans.
Behind the U.S. came the U.K., Canada, India, Germany, France, and Japan (in that order), with Russia’s miniscule one percent bringing up the rear.
So where does this leave everyone? Brian Cruikshank, “Executive Vice President & Managing Director of Ipsos Insight’s Technology & Communications practice” (and also the holder of a really long title), states, “The frequency of visitation to social networking websites globally implies that many Internet users are no longer simply ‘trying out’ these sites, but rather adopting social-networking as a significant part in their evolving digital lifestyle.”
That’s the positive spin, anyway. Eric Berlin notes that “hundreds of start-ups are trying to cash in on various niches of the social networking world – from horses to moms to honoring the deceased to college sports and everything in between,” too.
Ah, well. In other worldwide comparison news, South Korea performed admirably in a comScore Internet usage study.
