Behaving differently?

Cow Digital shared an interesting piece of comscore data today - the top 20 countries in terms of of digital social engagement (the average time spent on social networks by users).

What struck me about this was there seems to be an inverse relationship between the degree of digital sociability vs the historical degree of analog (physical) sociability within that country.  Perhaps it's my (mis)perception but countries like Italy, Australia, New Zealand and France have always struck me as being inherently social cultures, while Russia, Finland, UK, Germany and the USA have always felt far more of a nation of individuals.   (I note that Brazil and Spain seem to be big exceptions; perhaps these are the truly super-social nations?)  

Anyway, just struck me as a little interesting.  Is it that these countries spend more time in virtual social spaces as they are less intimidating, require less effort/investment, etc or could this perhaps be the beginning of the digital culture transforming the physical?

UPDATE:  There may be something in this.  In the comments section, Shinn Chen has kindly shared Hofstede's individualism rankings.  They're subjective but may offer some support of this inverse physical and digital sociability.

Comments

[Shinn Chen]

Individualism Rankings for 50 Countries and Three Regions

1 United States
2 Australia
3 Great Britain
4/5 Canada
4/5 The Netherlands
6 New Zealand
7 Italy
8 Belgium
9 Denmark
10/11 Sweden
10/11 France
12 Ireland
13 Norway
14 Switzerland
15 Germany (F.R.)
16 South Africa
17 Finland
18 Austria
19 Israel
20 Spain
21 India
22/23 Japan
22/23 Argentina
24 Iran
25 Jamaica
26/27 Brazil
26/27 Arab countries
28 Turkey
29 Uruguay
30 Greece
31 Philippines
32 Mexico
33/35 East Africa
33/35 Yugoslavia
33/35 Portugal
36 Malaysia
37 Hong Kong
38 Chile
39/41 West Africa
39/41 Singapore
39/41 Thailand
42 El Salvador
43 South Korea
44 Taiwan
45 Peru
46 Costa Rica
47/48 Pakistan
47/48 Indonesia
49 Colombia
50 Venezuela
51 Panama
52 Ecuador
53 Guatemala

From Hofstede (2001); his cultural dimensions are notoriously subjective and unreliable, but sometimes they're useful as rough approximations. There's also very few alternatives for quantitative measurements of culture. Table found here: http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/11711_Chapter7.pdf

[Gareth]

that's fantastic data. thanks shinn

[Daan Jansonius]

Hi Gareth,

Interesting post. During research for my dissertation I looked at how South Koreans and people in the UK differ in their trust placed in online tools and compared this to Hofstede's cultural rankings.

South Korea's adoption and trust levels of social media are far higher compared to the UK. With Hofstede's research indicating that South Korea is a far more collectivist culture, suggesting the opposite from the trend you have spotted.

The social media adoption figures came from McCann's Wave 3 report: http://www.slideshare.net/mickstravellin/universal-mccann-international-social-media-research-wave-3

You can find Hofstede's scores for individual countries here: http://www.geert-hofstede.com/hofstede_dimensions.php

[Gareth]

Daan,
Fair point but having looked at the data don't see the McCann stuff looking that dissimilar to comscore. I think South Korea, like Brazil and Spain, may be exceptions. Wasn't trying to paint a definitive law but rather a picture of some interesting behavioral differences. We should also not forget that South korea has one of the highest tech adoption rates, particularly mobile, of any country.

[Daan Jansonius]

Yeah, that's fair enough.

As mentioned by Shinn, the Hofstede data needs to be taken with a pinch of salt anyway. It's outdated and conducted before the internet and social networking in particular took off. Research also indicated that far more young South Koreans are 'Americanised', indicating their culture is in transition.

I think Spain and Brazil may be going through a similar cultural transition which may explain the difference.

[Gareth]

Daan,

Totally agree. When I visited Brazil last year, their use of technology and appetite for social media blew me away. never seen anything like it. As much as we talk in the US about our physical and digital lives being one, in Brazil it seemed totally natural. I'm going to be interested to see the effects on the Brazilian economy.