Social Media Statistics: Mind-Boggling Facts About the Medium

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It's no secret that social media is huge, but if you’re looking for some perspective about how gargantuan the medium actually is, here are some impressive facts:

• 1 in 5 couples meet online
• Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Britney Spears together have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Sweden, Israel, Greece, Chile, North Korea and Australia
• If Wikipedia.com were made into a book, it would be 2.25 million pages long and would take about 123 years to read
• Social media has overtaken pornography as the top activity on the Internet
• An education study revealed that online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
• Kids are starting to learn on iPads, not chalkboards
• Facebook tops Google in weekly U.S. traffic, and if the social networking site were a country, it would be the third-largest behind China and India
• 69 percent of parents are "friends" with their children on social networks
• A new member joins LinkedIn every second
• The Ford Explorer launch on Facebook generated more traffic than a Super Bowl ad
• Gen Y and Gen X consider e-mail passé. Some universities have even stopped distributing e-mail accounts
• E-books have surpassed traditional book sales
• A baby in Egpyt has been named Facebook to honor the social networking site's role in the country's revolution
• Groupon will reach $1 billion in sales faster than any company in history
• 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute

A new YouTube video from social media expert Erik Qualman, author of the book, "Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business" (Wiley Publishing, 2009), which breaks down the power of the medium with the help of real-world examples, has been making the rounds online since its debut earlier this month.

The "Social Media Revolution 2011" video is an updated version of his wildly popular clip from 2009, which aimed to show how social media is here to stay and how it is perhaps the biggest shift we're seeing since the industrial revolution, Qualman suggests in his video.

To watch his latest clip for more mind-blowing stats, watch on the video.

This story was provided by TechNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience. Reach TechNewsDaily senior writer Samantha Murphy at smurphy@techmedianetwork.com. Follow her on Twitter @SamMurphy_TMN.