The Office of Communications in the U.K. has just published an 80-page social networking study that should be on your list to read. The study looks at social networking usage across age brackets and includes data on male/female as well. Bebo, Facebook and MySpace take the lead role when specific networks are discussed.

Pages 63-65 include a glossary of terms that provides a simple overview of many common social networking terms. If you work in a large company, this is a perfect primer for the executive branch.

Some interesting stats from the report:

• Despite the fact that the minimum age for most major social networking sites is usually 13 (14 on MySpace), 27% of 8-11 year olds who are aware of social networking sites say that they have a profile on a site.
• The average adult social networker has profiles on 1.6 sites, and most users check their profile at least every other day
• 41% of children aged 8-17 who had a visible profile had their profile set so that it was visible to anyone
• 25% of registered social networking users had posted sensitive personal data about themselves on their profiles (phone numbers, home addresses, etc.)
• The majority of adults who had used a social networking site had a profile on Facebook (62%) and this was the most mentioned main social networking site (49%). Nearly half of all respondents reported having a profile on MySpace and one-third had one on Bebo.
• Two-thirds of parents say they set rules about their child’s use of social networking sites, although only 53% of children said that their parents set such rules

Here's one of the charts showing top social networking usage by site: