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Facebook, Orkut, MySpace, etc. these are some of the popular social networks. You might think that most of the people using internet might have an account on any of the social networks, but that is not the case. Synovate has released a survey report according to which 58% of the internet users have absolutely no idea about social networking.

The survey was conducted over 13,000 internet users ranging from 18-65 years of age. 17 different markets through out the world were included in the survey. The result shows that only 42% of the people know about social networking, leaving behind 58% who don’t know anything about it.

Holland, 89%, was the country with most people knowing about social networks. The second spot was captured by Japan with 71%, where as U.S. stood third with 70%.

An interesting fact is that only 26% of the users were part of any social network. These stats were higher in Holland with 49%, followed by United Arab Emirates 46%, Canada 44% and U.S. 40%.

According to Managing Director of Synovate, UAE:

The popularity in the UAE makes sense. It is a place that’s very connected to the world; a hub for cultures, business and people.

There are a lot of people who are not comfortable giving out their personal information. Only 26% of the over all users were comfortable in giving out their information. Serbians topped this list with 71%, followed by Indian with 57%.

According to Bob Michaels:

Identity theft continues to be a major problem in the US so handing out any personal information online is going to make people wary. Another growing issue in the US is online defamation — posting negative and sometimes untrue information about someone else online — so people are becoming more and more careful about the information they share and who they share it with.

On the other hand, those uncomfortable handing out their information include Japan and Germany hitting the top spot with 85% followed by Taiwan with 83%, Canada with 79%, Brazil and South Africa with 77% and Poland and U.S. with 70%.

There are people who think that social networking is dangerous. Overall the figure for such users is 51%. Brazilians topped this category with 79% followed by U.S. with 69% and Poland 62%.

Another interesting finding in the survey is that almost one third of the social network users are losing interest in it.