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Social media is now more popular than online porn

facebook likeHere’s a little tidbit we didn’t expect: Social media has overtaken looking at pornography as the No. 1 most popular activity on the Internet.

That staggering fact is one of many discoveries by Internet research project “Socialnomics,” founded by Erik Qualman, who is the only person we’ve ever heard of who could call himself a “social media guru” without seeming like a total tool. He’s also the author of the book Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business, and works as an MBA professor at the Hult International Business School, along with an amazing string of other impressive professional endeavors.

Comparing social media and porn is only a small fraction of the staggering statistics uncovered by Qualman, who just released a video (below) detailing some of the amazing tidbits about the connected world in which we now live.

For instance, did you know that 1 in 5 couples met online, or that the same number blame Facebook for their divorce? How about the fact that YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine; or that Groupon will reach $1 billion is sales faster than any other company in history. Yeah, us either.

While the below video has tons of interesting facts, the information extravaganza continues at the Socialnomics website, where Qualman has amassed the most impressive cache of information about social media we’ve ever encountered. The data encompasses not just statistics about social media services themselves, but also about the people who use them. For instance, over 50 percent of the world’s population is under the age of 30; or that the US Department of Education found that, on average, students who take online courses outperform those who actually lug themselves to a classroom.

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Andrew Couts
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Features Editor for Digital Trends, Andrew Couts covers a wide swath of consumer technology topics, with particular focus on…
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