Nielsen recently released its “State of the Media: The Social Media Report”, which reveals the increasing popularity of social media and its rising influence among Internet users in the U.S. last Sunday.

Social media affects consumer behavior on such a high level, considering social networks and blogs dominate America’s time online. According to Nielsen’s study, social networks and blogs account for about 22.5 percent of time spent online, which is more than 9.8 percent of time spent for online games and 7.6 percent for e-mail.

So, who are the most active social networkers in the U.S.?

ANSWER: Females aged 18-34; she is most likely Asian or Pacific Islander

Here are some other interesting facts found from the report:

  • Americans spend more time on Facebook than any other site with more than 53 billion total minutes spent during May 2011
  • Mobile social media use is on the rise as the third most-used type of mobile application among U.S. smartphone owners
  • More than twice as many people aged 55+ visit social networking sites on their mobile phone compared to last year
  • More women view video on social networks, but men watch longer
  • Active social media users are influential offline and are more likely than the average adult Internet user to be found at political rallies, professional sporting events and working out at the gym
  • Tumblr nearly tripled its unique U.S. audience over the last year with more than 600,000 total minutes in May 2011
  • Blogger is now the number two social networking site in the U.S. with 50.1 million unique visitors, followed by Twitter

Once again, Facebook continues to rank number one as the top social networking site. It’s also important to note that more social media users access content from their mobile phones and that social media users are not only influential online, but are also influential offline.

These modern trends show just how powerful and dynamic social media’s driving force really is in our world. It affects our day-to-day lives, continually “feeding” us with new and useful information that keeps our minds active and our connections growing.