The final session of Nielsen’s 2010 Consumer 360 featured a highly anticipated debate between Wired Editor In Chief, Chris Anderson the New Yorker’s Malcolm Gladwell on the topic of “Free.” This intellectual “cage match” (as Anderson called it) was moderated by Nielsen’s President of Media Product Leadership, Steve Hasker.

“Digital is good for TV,” said Time Warner Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bewkes at The Nielsen Company’s Consumer 360 conference today. “TV is not only not dead, but it’s one of the fastest growing businesses. Ratings, time spent and viewership are all up.”

There’s a growing belief that TV “cord cutting” – when consumers reduce the amount of time they watch TV or drop their digital TV subscriptions altogether and move to viewing video online – is gaining traction. But that myth is busted.

In the U.S., young people’s media usage is markedly different from that of older generations but is likely to converge with their elders as they themselves grow older, according to Nielsen SVP of Consumer Insights Dounia Turrill at today’s Consumer 360 conference in Las Vegas.

With a focus on how brands can listen and learn, Pete Blackshaw, EVP of Digital Strategic Services for Nielsen led a Consumer 360 insight session on the rapidly changing social media landscape.

Thanks to a goalkeeping blunder in the 40th minute, the United States escaped with a 1-1 draw versus England on Saturday. The player responsible for the mistake, England’s Robert Green, was not only pulled from relative obscurity into the social media spotlight, but his error has helped to fan the flames of World Cup fever in the US.

The world now knows a little more about Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer. She runs in Nike shoes, wears Covergirl mascara and her kids eat Cheerios.

From World Cup and beyond, George Bodenheimer, President ESPN, discussed the role of three screens in the evolving media landscape during Nielsen’s Consumer 360 conference.

The popularity of social media is undeniable as the world now spends over 110 billion minutes on social networks and blog sites – 22 percent of their time online.

In May 2010, U.S. web surfers on average spent more than 54 hours online according to the latest statistics from The Nielsen Company.