Just walk down a crowded side walk at rush hour – and try not to bump into someone posting Facebook updates on their iPhone, checking in at the train station, or tweeting about work that day. It doesn’t take a super-sleuth to see that Americans are using their mobile devices more than ever to browse the web, check email, and update on social networks. But, the actual percentage of increase in mobile browsing from last year to this year – 45.7% to nearly 64 million users in total – is pretty mind blowing.

Within that growth, social media is posting up the most impressive statistics; it had the highest growth recorded in any user category. According to a recent study by comScore Mobile Lens, the number of users who accessed social media sites via mobile device “almost daily” increased more than 70% Year over Year as of March 2011.

So what does this phenomenon mean for mobile web users, and what sort of ripple effect will it have on industries that rely on these users? In the short term, it means more advertisers will start venturing into mobile where they can find new audiences, our data providers will likely have to invest double-time (and hopefully not charge double) in these new networks and, of course, you might have to pay a little more attention to all of those crazy new mobile browsers and updaters who have been let loose on the crowded sidewalks!

This post was originally written for and featured on the ListEngage Blog – written by Kim Lindquist.