The numbers are impressive: Facebook added its 300 millionth member in September, and the site accounted for 58.6 percent of all U.S. visits to social networking sites in September, an increase of 194 percent over the year before. Twitter is taking off even more dramatically: That site has 20.8 million members and received 1.8 percent of all U.S. visits in September 2009, up from 0.15 percent a year earlier—that’s a growth rate of 1,170 percent. And that doesn’t even count users who get to Twitter without using its website, which could be half of all users.

Jessica E. Vascellaro reported in The Wall Street Journal (you must be a subscriber to read the story) that “while e-mail continues to grow, other types of communication services are growing far faster. In August 2009, 276.9 million people used e-mail across the U.S., several European countries, Australia and Brazil, according to Nielsen Co., up 21 percent from 229.2 million in August 2008. But the number of users on social-networking and other community sites jumped 31 percent to 301.5 million people.”

But what lies behind those numbers? Are social media users satisfied with the time they spend interacting online? How do social media translate into the real world? And what might the future hold?

To answer some of those questions, Euro RSCG Worldwide worked with MicroDialogue to survey 1,228 social media users and analyze thousands of verbatims and other conversations across blogs, Twitter and forums. Among the key findings:

• Social media interactions are here to stay. An increasing amount of socializing is happening online and has become part of daily life.
• Consumers recognize and appreciate the benefits of online (e.g., staying in touch with faraway friends, meeting new people) across ages, gender, and social intensity levels.
• Yet, more face-to-face is, by far, what consumers want for their future social life. Online lacks the same genuineness, intimacy and nurture of offline.
• It’s many consumers’ hope that their online social life will enhance their offline social life (and for some, it already does).
• Social media interactions have not only increased family and friend interactions overall but also increased involvement in political and humanitarian issues.
• No doubt, electronic media interactions have expanded consumers’ “active” communities and personal influence. Both satisfy natural human needs—sense of belonging and making a difference.

Here are some comments we heard from respondents and in the blogosphere and Twitterville:

• “Even though social media is a great communication mechanism, the importance of face-to face interaction should never be forgotten.”
• “The Internet is all about social networking these days, but is it killing your real-life, in-person networking and social life?”
• “Social media is a movement that is becoming an unstoppable trend.”
• “I wish that I could have more contact with friends offline but am hindered by distance and time.”
• “I hope that I will continue to enjoy friends & family get-togethers, movies, games and such offline. I hope to continue to chat & play games with family & friends I can’t see in person.”
• “I need more friends because I want to be Net popular, you know, to make up for the social life I don’t have offline.”

Other commentators have noticed similarly contradictory impulses. In Vascellaro’s Journal piece, she argues that e-mail’s dominance has ended and

a new generation of services is starting to take hold—services like Twitter and Facebook and countless others vying for a piece of the new world. And just as e-mail did more than a decade ago, this shift promises to profoundly rewrite the way we communicate—in ways we can only begin to imagine…

Now, we are always connected, whether we are sitting at a desk or on a mobile phone. The always-on connection, in turn, has created a host of new ways to communicate that are much faster than e-mail, and more fun…. These new services also make communicating more frequent and informal—more like a blog comment or a throwaway aside, rather than a crafted e-mail sent to one person.

Vascellaro goes on to quote an AOL executive who calls using new social media tools replacing the in-box with “a river that continues to flow as you dip into it.”

That river can be pleasant to drift along, but it can also threaten to sweep us away. Frequent and widespread communication comes at the cost of intimacy, and it makes it difficult to predict where anything will end up. And we’re not just sometimes giving out too much information; we’re taking too much in. The nonstop flow of tweets and status updates makes it hard to judge what’s really important—and tempting to tune out.

Although our survey showed that most users disagree with the media chatter that social networking is just a fad, there are signs of a backlash in some quarters. Or if not a backlash, at least a realization that social networking is not the be-all, end-all of communication.

Responding to the Journal article, The Huffington Post technology and innovations editor Jose Antonio Vargas wrote:

If you like having an instant focus group, a pulsating, by-the-second, rat-a-tat-tat burst of sound bites, wisecracks and tidbits, then Twitter is probably the best platform for you….

If you want a more closed-off, only-in-the-company-of-friends stream of information, then Facebook may be your best bet….

But if you prefer to not let the quickening rhythm of digital communication dictate your behavior and take over your life—then stick to plain old e-mail. You read it when you want, you reply when you can, no sweat.

His concluding remark: “Sometimes a plain old e-mail—not a text, not a tweet, not a Facebook update, not a Wave—is the safest, most personal, most liberating way to go.”

Even millennials—the group most involved with social media, according to our research (63 percent use e-mail daily, 40 percent use Facebook, 47 percent text and 15 percent tweet)—are expressing reservations, Drake University student Tiffany Krause wrote in an op-ed in The Times-Delphic. Although she argued that it has a place in people’s social lives, makes keeping in touch easier, serves as a source of breaking news and has enormous potential for businesses and marketers, her conclusion was mixed:

Ready or not, social media is playing a larger role in our lives. It has affected social and business interactions and influenced news coverage. Who knows how it will continue to shape society. I used to think Facebook was only for kids, and look how that turned out. Does this mean social media will dominate every aspect of our lives? I hope not. There are times when I need face time instead of Facebook time.

That’s consistent with our research: Fifty-five percent of the youngest respondents reported wanting more of their social interaction to be face-to-face. Social media are here to stay, but it’s clear that people still crave old-fashioned communities, too.