eMarketer says that 37% of online adults use social networks at least once a month and that the figure will grow to nearly 50% by 2011. Among teens, usage is already well over half and will near 85% by 2011. Social nets clearly offer value that conventional news and information sites don’t.

Allan Cattier, Director of the Academic Technology Group at Emory University gave a mind-blowing statistic in his presentation to the Communintelligence Executing Social Media conference in Atlanta last month. He said Emory had surveyed its freshman class and found that more than 80% of the students log on to Facebook 18 or more times a day. Imagine how our institutions will be shaped by this trend in coming years. He also showed a compelling video called “A Vision of Students Today” created by Michael Wesch in collaboration with 200 students at Kansas State University. See below.