Every week, BoomTown is calling all those who make cool graphs, charts and stats done prettily about tech to send them to me pronto.

I am–truth be told–a secret stats fanatic. A bargraphaholic. Yes, even a closet pie-charter.

The last set of data I posted was a comparison of the share and consumer loyalty of the three big search engines–Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo (YHOO) and, of course, Google (GOOG).

This week, in its annual survey of consumer technology attitudes and adoption, titled “The State of Consumers and Technology,” Forrester Research found that…wait for it, wait for it…the kids love the Internet!

As you can see in the chart labeled 4-1 below (click on the image to make it larger), new media beat traditional media for consumers younger than 40 years old, in terms of hours spent.

Still, the under-40 group also use traditional media, through both online and television channels, as you can see in the chart labeled 4-2, although TV is the most likely way everyone accesses most big-media offerings.

Well, except the Weather Channel, which leads in “cross-channel media use,” which means it is doing swimmingly in diversifying its distribution.

Lastly, in the 4-3 chart, as with the first chart, while Web sites like News Corp. (NWS) social networking site MySpace and its rival Facebook show up on the 10 most regularly consumed channels for the youngs, the olds are still mostly chomping on networks, newspapers and cable.

In other words, traditional media’s demographic is the group more likely to die first! But at least they’re loyal!

Last night, BoomTown was at the Horn Group offices in San Francisco to appear on a panel called “Is Social Media Killing PR?”

Focused on the “future of the media ecosystem,” it was moderated by Media Survey’s Sam Whitmore. Besides me, the other panelists were the Horn Group’s Susan Etlinger and Jeremiah Owyang, a Web strategist with Forrester Research.

The panel topic was inspired by recent blog rants by Jason Calacanis, Robert Scoble and Michael Arrington, all of whom have taken potshots at the PR industry as unnecessary or broken in the new social media order.

Of course, as was the intent, their pieces caused a teapot-tempest in the sector, although I said at the start of the panel that I was not so sure that PR folks should bite at this particular bait from a trio of bloggers well known for liking to start controversial debates.

In any case, it was a good discussion to a packed audience about what the implications of social media are for the PR business–essentially, fewer press releases and more Twitters!

My take was that as much as things have changed, little actually has and that social media were not going to turn a weak pitch into a strong one.

All that counted a decade ago were good products and solid start-ups–and that is all that still counts today.

And, in fact, with all the social tools PR folks now have, it is easier than ever for them and companies to go right around the gatekeepers of the media directly to customers.

Here’s a short video I did at the event:

According to a new report from Forrester Research (FORR) the site references in the post, enterprises will spend much more in the coming years on social networking, RSS, blogs, widgets and such, making it a $4.6 billion market by 2013.

Here is an interesting data table from the ReadWriteWeb post (click on the image to make it larger):

Of course, that doesn’t mean that Twitter’s creators should be jumping up and down now that an actual business plan might be surfacing.

In fact, a lot of popular consumer products might not port over to the business market, even if the concept does.

And, naturally, the old grumps in the IT departments loom large over what gets into corporations and what does not, the ReadWriteWeb piece notes, although other enterprise departments like marketing are already enamored with Web 2.0 tools.

Still security and scaling issues remain paramount, and start-ups that have pioneered these apps in the consumer space might lose business to big copycats like IBM (IBM) and Microsoft (MSFT).

I saw real evidence of the shift at an event in Silicon Valley last week, related to Rohit Bhargava’s new book “Personality Not Included: Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity and How Great Brands Get It Back.”

And, although I expected much more of a corporate love fest, since the affable Bhargava is an SVP of digital strategy and marketing at Ogilvy Public Relations, it turned out to be a very interesting discussion of ways companies could embrace Web 2.0.

I was particularly struck with the very sharp questions from the Silicon Valley-heavy corporate audience too, who were savvy but still curious about the potential pitfalls and benefits of such tools.

Such discussions will be even more interesting, as they percolate across the country to places where most people are just hearing the word widget.

You know, pretty much everywhere except here.