The world of Facebook connections
This map, created by Facebook, shows the connections people have made around the world. It is useful for charting who is connected and, just as important, who isn't (at least via Facebook, there is still a world outside of Facebook, or so I've been told).
A recent Pew survey looked at the world's appetite for social networking:
'Among the 22 publics surveyed, Americans most often say they use websites like Facebook and MySpace: 46% use such sites, 36% use the internet, but do not access these sites, and 18% say they never go online.The survey finds three countries close behind the United States in social network usage: in Poland (43%), Britain (43%) and South Korea (40%), at least four-in-ten adults say they use such sites. And at least a third engage in social networking in France (36%), Spain (34%), Russia (33%) and Brazil (33%).1
Germans and the Japanese stand out among highly connected publics for their comparatively low levels of participation in social networking. While 31% of Germans use these types of sites, 49% go online at least occasionally but choose not to use them. In Japan, 24% are engaged in social networking, while 44% have internet access but are not engaged.
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[Hat tip: William Easterly]