It has now been more than a week since “You” — and everyone else - were named Time magazine’s Person of the Year. You’ve had a chance to reflect and let it all sink in.

Maybe you’ve been thinking how it was a nice way to close out 2006. But something feels a bit hollow about the whole experience, right? And not just because the funhouse-esque mirror on Time’s cover distorted your image. Or because you were just one of billions who won the award. In case you missed it, Time selected “You” for the power people gained and used in democratising the media by creating content for the Internet.

Maybe it bothers you that you didn’t do much to earn the award. Because, despite all the things for which Time says it is honouring “You,” odds are you haven’t done any of them. Time suggests that everyone has played a role in the world’s new, dynamic media environment. But its premise is flawed. The evidence shows that only a small percentage of Americans are really contributing to the Web in meaningful ways — or even at all. Time’s cover package is a fanfare to the common man’s ability to rise up and be heard in the media world, thanks to new online tools such as blogs, YouTube (a video-sharing site), and Wikipedia (an encyclopedia anyone can edit).

Yet for all the Web’s potential as the great populist leveller in the media world, data show most people aren’t really posting content all that much. Surveys show that about 70 per cent of adult Americans have been on the Internet at some point. That’s a big number, but what do those people do? Only 8 per cent —about 12 million — keep a blog, according to a recent survey from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Of those bloggers, 84 per cent blog as a “hobby” or say it’s “not something I spend a lot of time on.” And 37 per cent of them say “their personal experiences” are their primary topic. A different survey from the same source found that only 26 per cent of all Internet users had ever shared personal material such as “artwork, photos, stories, or videos online.”

Big bloggers like Reynolds of Instapundit.com and Markos Moulitsas Zúniga of Dailykos.com get hundreds of thousands of visits every day. But they are the minority. Of the small percentage of people who actually blog, tens of thousands post to blogs that have an average daily viewership of ... one. In other words, the scope of the Web’s populist revolution shouldn’t be overstated.

What the media revolution has really done is create a new and interesting class of media. It’s not mainstream but it certainly isn’t “You.” It’s actually more “Them.” And if Time really wants to make “Them” the Person of the Year, then why not?

There are worse choices. As for you, don’t feel too bad. You can still proudly display the latest issue of Time, lousy mirror image and all. And don’t feel bad if you don’t go out and start a blog tomorrow. If everyone did, who would have time to read it all, anyway? — The Christian Science Monitor