Eight out of 10 S. Africans use social media

Most of the world is interconnected thanks to email and social networking sites just as Facebook and Twitter, according to a new poll.

The world is interconnected thanks to email

New York - Most of the world is interconnected thanks to email and social networking sites just as Facebook and Twitter, according to a new poll released on Tuesday.

Eighty five percent of people around the globe who are connected online send and receive emails and 62 percent communicate through social networking sites, particularly in Indonesia, Argentina and Russia, which have the highest percentage of users.

Although Facebook and other popular social networking sites, blogs and forums, were founded in the United States the percentage of users was lower at six in 10, and in Japan it fell to 35 percent, the lowest of the 24 countries in the global survey.

The fact that more than six in 10 people worldwide use social networks and forums, she added, suggests a transformation in how people communicate with each other.

Although Americans and Japanese are thought to be very tech savvy, voice-over IP, audio conversations conducted via an Internet connection, were not very popular in both countries with less than 10 percent of people using the relatively new research, compared to 36 percent in Russia, 32 percent in Turkey and 25 percent in India.