By Chris Nerney on August 27, 2009 10:58 AM

A Nation of Social Media Addicts? Not Quite

We’re not yet a country addicted to social networking, if a new survey by Web publishing services provider Burst Media is any indication. Don’t worry, though; the potential is there, if you only believe.

Burst’s survey earlier this month of 1,900 Americans 18 years and older found that only 53.1 percent of respondents say they belong to at least one social media site. Yes, that’s more than half, but how many in this group are “Twitter Quitters” (people who sign up for the microblogging service and quickly abandon it) or others who join some social networking service only to lose interest?

Further, Burst reports that “half of the respondents spend less than 30 minutes per day on social networking sites.”

Broken down by age and gender, Burst’s numbers show that:

77.4 percent of respondents ages 18-34 used social media, and 54.8 percent belong to two or more social media sites

Only 47.5 percent of Baby Boomers (ages 45-64) are online social networkers, and just 23.3 percent belong to two or more socnet sites

Overall, women were more likely than men (56.5 percent to 50.6 percent) to belong to a social networking site.

As the Burst survey report notes, there’s plenty of growth potential here for social media, especially among older Internet users. However…

This opportunity…cannot be fully realized with the current selection of social networking options. Our survey found that only 11.9 percent of Boomers who currently belong to a social networking site feel they are focused on people their age; among Boomers who do not belong to a social networking site, only 3.6 percent believe they are focused on their demographic.

So if the Boomers aren’t flocking to social networking sites, how are they spending their time online? Seeking out local/national news (55.8 percent), shopping or comparison shopping (41.6 percent) or reading health news (40.2 percent).

Clearly there’s an opportunity for someone to combine the content that Boomers want with a social networking environment that works for them.