InTheCapital

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By Carl Pierre / @carlpierre

As we come to the end of 2011, it’s important to wistfully reflect upon your year and realize how much time in your life has been wasted on Social Media via an infograph. So take a quick pause from stalking that person on Facebook, hold off on tweeting about how you found a hair in your muffin this morning, and take a look at a few staggering metrics and figures that will make you question the direction humanity is heading.

“Out of the 800 million Facebook users currently active, more than 200 million were added in 2011.”

- This means that close to a seventh of the world’s population is on Facebook. If you just soiled yourself, fret not, this statistic induces that effect. God help us the day Facebook goes offline for whatever reason.

“eMarketer estimates there will be nearly 21 million Twitter users in the U.S. by the end of the year, a small supplement to the current 100 million users currently active on Twitter.”

- Have you ever dreamt of having omniscience as a child, being able to know what everyone is doing and thinking around you? Well you can stop dreaming and get the next best thing, a twitter account. That’s right, we’re doing it Jetsons-style in 2011 baby.

“Beyonce’s baby bump elicited a new Twitter record of 8,868 Tweets per second.”

- A lot of momentous things have happened in 2011; the earthquake in Japan, finding possible water on Mars, Congress’ budget crisis, the US pulling out of Iraq. What truly shocks me to my core is that of everything that has happened this year, the event that set the world’s tweeting record is Beyonce getting knocked up. Congrats humanity, we officially fail.

Netflix’s price hike caused 805,000 paid subscribers to ditch the service during the last quarter.

- The greed of corporations leading to something amazing being ruined is not a new story. Just look at Arrested Development.

One in three texters would rather text than talk.

- In the defense of texters, it does take a considerable amount of work to raise a phone to your face and hold it there. I consider talking on the phone the new isometric exercise of the year. Burning about three to four calories per phone call, about 10 reps a day, just a few more thousand phone calls till I have the biceps of Dolph Lungren.

According to Nielsen, 23% of overall internet usage is spent on a social network or a blog.

- This is actually a statistic I do enjoy. I think integrating more methods and mediums of absorbing knowledge into our lives is a good thing. 

65% of adult internet users now say they use some sort of social-networking site.

- This is a staggering statistic, and I cannot emphasize enough how this reflects the amount of weight Social Media carries in the average internet user’s life. It’s statistics like these that demonstrate how powerful a tool Social Media can be for businesses and companies.

44% of companies track employees’ social-media use in and out of the office.

- Possibly the most frightening statistic of all, truly affirming my 1984-induced paranoia of big brother. Tweak those privacy settings on your Facebook account to ninja status, and beware of tweeting disparaging comments about your boss or coworkers. This year has been filled with a variety of Social Media-related firings/scandals, feel free to check them out yourself.

Clearly 2011 has been quite an epic year for Social Media, and I anticipate 2012 will only get crazier.

By Charlie Warzel/ @cwarzel