We’ve all heard of Facebook, MySpace, Linked In, and Twitter.  Maybe you have an account on one or the other, or even all four.  You, with millions of other users, are along the ride of being available 24/7 to have friends, family members, and other networks to see your information, profile, and pictures.  Now being able to share posts on your daily life exercises and thoughts, we- as a social networking obsessed world- are now officially spend 82% more time on these sites compared to the amount of time we put just a year earlier.

So much time that some of us are putting in the number of hours equivalent to a full-time job – a full-time job that doesn’t take a break on weekends. If the average person spends around five and a half hours a day, seven days a week, that leads one to a little shy of forty hours. Didn’t think you spent that much time each week, did you?

And it’s not just the United States that is infatuated with social networking. Australia, Switzerland, Brazil, Japan, Italy, Spain, and the entire U.K is shortly behind us. In Fact, the US may have the most people belonging to these groups, but Australians have the lead for times-per-day visits. Around the globe, people are interested in having people follow them and have people interested in what they are doing; all day, everyday.  Are we in a self-obsessed world, or just a world that loves to communicate with each other? With social networking up by 82% from last year, how much longer will it be before all of our time is spent on the computer?

Oh, the power of YouTube.

We all know, watch, and laugh at videos on YouTube.  From the hilarious thirty-second home videos people share to the minutes long music videos and professional filmed broadcasts.  We all can agree, YouTube is America’s Funniest Home Videos of the Internet.  Now YouTube is coming from a whole new direction: movie rentals.  YouTube plans to sell five full-length independent movies drawn from the 2010 and 2009 Sundance Film Festivals in February 2010.  These five films include the award winning, “The Cove,” “Children of Invention,” as well as “Bass Ackwards,” “Homewrecker,” and “One Too Many Mornings.”

While movie rental competitors include Blockbuster, RedBox, and iTunes, YouTube is offering the bargain price of $3.99 for 24-48 hours per video rental. This small fee will be split between YouTube and the content provider. The viewer must use Google Checkout services to legally pay for the film and have it for the complete rental period.  This is all part of Youtube’s “Filmmakers Wanted” campaign which helps to attract more film makers from Sundance but to also broaden their client spectrum of the entertainment industry to having health and education sectors come on board soon.

The minimal selection of five movies may not be enough to grab your attention quite yet, but YouTube hopes to accomplish the idea of going global within the year; providing a plethora of movies to choose from in the comfort of your own home and on your lap.