The Knight News Challenge describes newspapers as the glue that used to hold communities together. Of course, technology has changed everything.

Now, instead, it is not the news media that is providing the online glue, but new players such as Facebook and MySpace. Social media has proved a runaway hit, especially among Canadians.

A report by Ipsos Reid has found that Canadians spend an average of 5.4 hours per week accessing social networks. It found that nearly one in four Canadians have visited an online social network, while 29% have placed a profile on at least one such site.

As you might expect, younger Canadians are leading the way, with two-thirds visiting social media sites and just over half posting a personal profile.

Scott Patton, Senior Research Manager in Western Canada:

This is a staggering result given that these sites didn’t exist four years ago. Facebook launched in early 2004, as did MSN Spaces, two of the largest such sites on the Internet. The growth in use of these sites simply hasn’t been matched by any other Internet activities we’ve ever seen.

However the same report warns the use of online social networks may not continue to grow as rapidly in Canada. Even with a slowdown in the growth of social media, this is a phenomenon that the mainstream media cannot ignore.

The young people using Facebook today are not going to be turning to newspapers in older age for that “social glue”. As youngsters add, they are going to take their digital habits with them. The challenge for the news industry is to become part of these new online communities.