Social media isn’t just changing the way we communicate, it’s changing the way we live, and this could have dramatic environmental benefits, especially when it comes to how we drive cars.

An increase in the popularity of car sharing programs, and their use amongst young people, is evidence of how social media is being put to good use both online and offline.

Shareable Magazine and Latitude Research recently joined forces on the study, The New Sharing Economy[PDF], which found that sharing behaviors are on the rise because people are learning to trust one another through online interactions. The study, published last week, was undertaken in response to a colossal growth in the number of online startups that encourage sharing of some kind and facilitate in-person meetups. More than 500 Web users were queried “to uncover actionable insight to help sharing entrepreneurs grow their social enterprises,” writes Neal Gorenflo, Shareable Magazine’s publisher.

Calling car sharing a “gateway drug to a sharing economy,” the study found that people who participate in car-sharing programs showed the greatest proclivity towards sharing behaviors across mediums, the study found:

Car sharers share across significantly more categories than non-car sharers – 11 versus 8 categories. Ironically, the very thing that catalyzed consumer culture may be the vehicle into the sharing economy. Carsharing preceded the recent surge in sharing startups, and apparently car sharers are leading the behavior shift into a sharing economy. The finding suggests that once someone tries a sharing service they’re more likely to begin sharing in other areas of their life. With this in mind, sharing enterprises would do well to seek partnerships with carsharing and like services, seek out users of other sharing services as new customers, and begin offering other items to share once established in a category.

Gorenflo writes that two books have recently been published that chronicle the rise of the sharing phenomenon; What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption, and The Mesh, which looks at how sharing is changing everything from farming, to fitness, education and transportation.

Sharing of all kinds is a trend that is here to stay, and it represents the future of business, as today’s consumers wish to experience more and own less.

If car-sharing can be promoted through social media, this is one of the most meaningful ways that digital communication could have an impact on the real world. Perhaps the most powerful statistic to boost car sharing is that on average, one car share vehicle can take 15 cars off the road.

Depending on the make and model of a so-called “clean car,” the energy input required to manufacture the vehicle may negate any environmental benefits of driving it, says to Michael Maternick of The Truth About Cars. A life cycle analysis of the personal automobile, no matter how environmentally friendly, shows that no car is truly a clean car. The equivalent of 715 gallons of gasoline is needed to make the 2009 Honda Civic, which will then burn an average of 413 gallons of gasoline per year, Maternick says. Not so clean is it? Hybrids and plugins face the same problem when considerations of the impacts of mineral extraction for Lithium-ion batteries are thrown in.

The need for cars will never disappear though. Sharing cars, therefore, becomes the best way to spread the benefits and minimize the impacts of driving.

Paris, is readying for a major car-sharing scheme, Autolib, which would deploy 3,000
plugin-electric passenger cars at locations throughout the city, and if successful could, eliminate 45,000 cars from the road. This is good for traffic, and good for the environment. Not only will the shared cars reduce emissions pollution, but by reducing demand for new cars–even clean ones–energy demand is dampened even more. Could social media make an ambitious plan even more effective?

In addition to car-sharing programs, ride sharing applications are also on the rise.

FareShare and Weeels are two apps allow New Yorkers to share cab rides, similar to Zimride, a carpooling and car sharing community started by college students.

The full text of the Shareable study can be found below.

The New Sharing Economy