By Michael Alan Hamlin

The somewhat startling title of this column isn’t meant to refer to the Philippines as a top exporter of people, a highly corrupt state, or an incredibly poor one compared to most of its high-achieving neighbors in Southeast Asia. No, instead it refers to the Philippines as number one in terms of the percentage of its Internet population that visits social networking sites in the Asia Pacific. Filipinos also spend more time on social networks than other Asia Pacific netizens.

comScore, a company that measures online activity, announced last month that 90.3% of the Internet population in the Philippines visited social networks in February. The company did not provide an estimate of the Internet population, but other research organizations estimate it to be between 25 and 35 million (Penetration is expected to be the subject of a subsequent comScore report.). Australia trailed the Philippines closely, with 89.6% of its Internet users visiting social websites in February. Indonesia placed third, at 88.6%.

However, both Philippine and Indonesia Internet users spend much more time on social networks and visit them more often than their Australian peers. Visitors in the Philippines spent an average of 5.5 hours on social networks in February during 26 visits. In Indonesia, users averaged 5.4 hours in 22 visits compared to 3.8 hours for the average Australia user in 20 visits. Interestingly, users in Japan—the world’s second largest economy—on average spent just 121 hours on social networks in February, about the same as users in India. Only 42.3% of Japan’s Internet population visited social networks at all.

This is particularly interesting as it means they’re communicating better than anyone else in the area. Social media, whether it’s used for organizing parties or linking friends to o 2 uk mobile Broadband reviews, is an important part of societal development. Our modern environment requires us to take up communications tools like this, and the Philippines has done this to an impressive degree.

In primarily English-speaking countries, Facebook was the number one social network, including in the Philippines where comScore found that 84.5% of the Internet population use the service. Google’s Orkut was the number one network in India, Wretch.cc in Taiwan, CyWorld in South Korea, and Mixi.jp in Japan. However, Facebook was the number one social network in Vietnam, where it reaches only about 19% of the Internet population.

Although the Philippines is the well-established SMS capital of the world—generating two billion messages a day— access to social networking sites is primarily via PCs rather than mobile devices. There are reports that sales of prepaid smart phones that can access the Internet and social network sites are on the rise, but a recent study by Gilas—an NGO that seeks to connect high schools to the Internet—suggests that increasing access to the Internet is also deepening the digital divide.

That study—underwritten by the World Bank—shows that 85% of the richest high school students but only 30% of the poorest have regular access to the Internet. Youth from farming families showed the lowest access. Not surprisingly, students whose family members work abroad demonstrated the highest use, suggesting that Internet technology is being leveraged as a tool to keep families digitally connected since they can’t physically connect.

However, both the poorest and the richest students primarily use Internet cafés as their primary access to the Internet, and this is true for both boys and girls. Only about 10% of 11,000 or so students surveyed said that school provides their primary access to the Internet. Boys and girls have similar rates of use, but use the Internet for different purposes. For girls, school work and social networking are the priorities; for boys—no surprise here—it’s computer games. Girls also use e-mail more, but both girls and boys use it primarily to communicate with friends in the Philippines. The study did show that boys typically begin using computers earlier than girls.

One of the most important findings in terms of access to computers and the Internet is that these tools increase knowledge of and contribute to more mature attitudes and practices in several areas. They include studies and academics, health, employment and prospects for economic advancement, self-confidence, sexuality and relationships, and civics and citizenship. Students who have access to the Internet—not just a computer—showed stronger association with positive behaviors and attitudes than students limited to computer access and no Internet.

Naturally, there’s a trade off. Use of the Internet exposes youths to exploitation, and enables access to negative content, especially pornography. Students are also largely unaware of unethical practices such as plagiarism, piracy, and spreading inaccurate information. Those are important concerns, and it’s important that parents and school officials work as partners to address them. The benefits of Internet access are well worth the tradeoff, but the tradeoffs can also be ameliorated. Should the Philippines be proud of being number one on social networks—Girls, what do you say?—I say open communication is always a good thing. And providing a means for mature attitudes to develop is crucial. So crucial that the Philippines can’t afford a big digital divide.

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