SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA — Most users of social networking Web sites are motivated by personal needs and a desire for entertainment rather than business and practical objectives, according to a recent survey by Gartner Inc. Based on its findings, Gartner said although the potential of such sites for business remains largely untapped, they will become increasingly important to the competiveness of large enterprises in the future.“Social networking software holds enormous potential for improving the management of large enterprises,” said Nick Ingelbrecht, research director at Gartner. “However, work in this area is still immature, and in the meantime enterprises should be aware of what is happening in the world of consumer social networking and implement appropriate usage policies for employees’ use of services such as Facebook and MySpace on company time.”

The survey, which included respondents from 18 countries and territories between October and December 2007, revealed that of more than 4,000 PC and mobile phone users, 38-percent connected to social networking sites via PC, less than 1-percent by mobile phone only, and 8-percent via both mobile phone and PC. More than half the respondents indicated they did not visit social networking sites regularly or at all. Of those who did, male respondents tended to access mobile and online social networking services more frequently than females, and the most active users in terms of life stage and age were single people and teenagers. Gartner identified three groups of early adopters most likely to use social networking: the “aspirers,” “young funseekers” and “tech savants.”

Respondents also were asked to rate how important social networking and 14 other major internet applications were for them when making decision about how, when and where to use the internet. Despite the hype surrounding social networking, respondents generally did not place a high level of importance on social networking sites, compared with other internet applications like as email and search. However, taken together with other broad forms of networking including instant messaging, email, chatrooms and photo and file sharing, a significant aggregate level of interest in the social aspects of communication emerged: Respondents preferred social-networking apps over applications that are simply transactional, diverting or functional.

Gartner predicted online social networking will come to be regarded as just the latest expression of a long-standing pattern of human behaviors involving an increasing range of communications protocols and technologies.

“Social networking is arguably as old as humanity, not something new that has been invented for so-called ‘digital natives,’” said Julia Lin, project manager of research data and analytics at Gartner. “However, social networking has found new forms of expression on the internet, [and that] has helped to reshape the purpose and protocols of social networking in the online world and beyond. How to apply this in a corporate environment will be the next major challenge.”

The study, “Dataquest Insight: Consumer Social Networks, A Fact-Based Reality Check,” is available at Gartner’s website.