Flawed media statistics — it seems the newsroom of mainstream media will broadcast and publish any silly thing. Here’s a few examples with regard to “social media.” Either they don’t know statistics or they don’t understand social media… probably both.
Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the U.S. (the media got that correct, but it makes sense, you don’t expect to return to searching for the same thing on a weekly basis, as opposed to checking in weekly with friends)
Facebook added over 200 million users in less than a year (you mean during the sixth year of operation, fine)
If Facebook were a country it would be the worlds 3rd largest ahead of the United States and only behind China and India (Would you compare your TV to a country? There are more TV sets than Facebook users. Or how about comparing mobile phones to global population? We could declare mobile phones are the worlds biggest country.)
iPhone applications reach 1 billion downloads in 9 months. (one billion downloads from the Appstore, fine, but there is nothing social/no direct social media connection regarding downloading an app for iPhone and iPod touch.)
People enjoy sweeping generalizations – that explains the wide readership of authors who draw upon anecdotal evidence to present their “research.” Remember Outliers? Does someone practice TV hosting for 10,000 hours like I do, or do they just take advantage of the TV marketplace, who they know in the TV business, and what their agent can bring to them?
Although one’s progress or success in their chosen field benefits from practice… what was interesting was to place the emphasis in terms of hours, rather than days, months or weeks to get the reader thinking about how one uses each hour on a daily basis.
Here’s another example of a sweeping generalization – it’s easy with a book generator:
***Update:
One of the most interesting uses of Twitter, FB, Skype, etc. ~ anything the media would call social media, is the global coordination people are engaged in due to technology. We are seeing unprecedented amateur news coverage and global sharing and global response as people use technology to communicate as it relates to unrest in the Near East or to engage in productive response to troubled communities in Japan that need assistance with supplies.