As of April 2024, around 16.5 percent of global active Instagram users were men between the ages of 18 and 24 years. More than half of the global Instagram population worldwide was aged 34 years or younger.

              Teens and social media

              As one of the biggest social networks worldwide, Instagram is especially popular with teenagers. As of fall 2020, the photo-sharing app ranked third in terms of preferred social network among teenagers in the United States, second to Snapchat and TikTok. Instagram was one of the most influential advertising channels among female Gen Z users when making purchasing decisions. Teens report feeling more confident, popular, and better about themselves when using social media, and less lonely, depressed and anxious.
              Social media can have negative effects on teens, which is also much more pronounced on those with low emotional well-being. It was found that 35 percent of teenagers with low social-emotional well-being reported to have experienced cyber bullying when using social media, while in comparison only five percent of teenagers with high social-emotional well-being stated the same. As such, social media can have a big impact on already fragile states of mind.

How much time do people spend on social media?

              As of 2024, the average daily social media usage of internet users worldwide amounted to 143 minutes per day, down from 151 minutes in the previous year. Currently, the country with the most time spent on social media per day is Brazil, with online users spending an average of three hours and 49 minutes on social media each day. In comparison, the daily time spent with social media in
              the U.S. was just two hours and 16 minutes. Global social media usageCurrently, the global social network penetration rate is 62.3 percent. Northern Europe had an 81.7 percent social media penetration rate, topping the ranking of global social media usage by region. Eastern and Middle Africa closed the ranking with 10.1 and 9.6 percent usage reach, respectively.
              People access social media for a variety of reasons. Users like to find funny or entertaining content and enjoy sharing photos and videos with friends, but mainly use social media to stay in touch with current events friends. Global impact of social mediaSocial media has a wide-reaching and significant impact on not only online activities but also offline behavior and life in general.
              During a global online user survey in February 2019, a significant share of respondents stated that social media had increased their access to information, ease of communication, and freedom of expression. On the flip side, respondents also felt that social media had worsened their personal privacy, increased a polarization in politics and heightened everyday distractions.

This dataset is structured as a graph, where nodes represent users and edges capture their interactions, including tweets, retweets, replies, and mentions. Each node provides detailed user attributes, such as unique ID, follower and following counts, and verification status, offering insights into each user's identity, role, and influence in the mental health discourse. The edges illustrate user interactions, highlighting engagement patterns and types of content that drive responses, such as tweet impressions. This interconnected structure enables sentiment analysis and public reaction studies, allowing researchers to explore engagement trends and identify the mental health topics that resonate most with users.

The dataset consists of three files: 1. Edges Data: Contains graph data essential for social network analysis, including fields for UserID (Source), UserID (Destination), Post/Tweet ID, and Date of Relationship. This file enables analysis of user connections without including tweet content, maintaining compliance with Twitter/X’s data-sharing policies. 2. Nodes Data: Offers user-specific details relevant to network analysis, including UserID, Account Creation Date, Follower and Following counts, Verified Status, and Date Joined Twitter. This file allows researchers to examine user behavior (e.g., identifying influential users or spam-like accounts) without direct reference to tweet content. 3. Twitter/X Content Data: This file contains only the raw tweet text as a single-column dataset, without associated user identifiers or metadata. By isolating the text, we ensure alignment with anonymization standards observed in similar published datasets, safeguarding user privacy in compliance with Twitter/X's data guidelines. This content is crucial for addressing the research focus on mental health discourse in social media. (References to prior Data in Brief publications involving Twitter/X data informed the dataset's structure.)

In 2023, Meta Platforms had a total annual revenue of over 134 billion U.S. dollars, up from 116 billion in 2022. LinkedIn reported its highest annual revenue to date, generating over 15 billion USD, whilst Snapchat reported an annual revenue of 4.6 billion USD.

As of January 2024, Instagram was slightly more popular with men than women, with men accounting for 50.6 percent of the platform’s global users. Additionally, the social media app was most popular amongst younger audiences, with almost 32 percent of users aged between 18 and 24 years.

              Instagram’s Global Audience

              As of January 2024, Instagram was the fourth most popular social media platform globally, reaching two billion monthly active users (MAU). This number is projected to keep growing with no signs of slowing down, which is not a surprise as the global online social penetration rate across all regions is constantly increasing.
              As of January 2024, the country with the largest Instagram audience was India with 362.9 million users, followed by the United States with 169.7 million users.

              Who is winning over the generations?

              Even though Instagram’s audience is almost twice the size of TikTok’s on a global scale, TikTok has shown itself to be a fierce competitor, particularly amongst younger audiences. TikTok was the most downloaded mobile app globally in 2022, generating 672 million downloads. As of 2022, Generation Z in the United States spent more time on TikTok than on Instagram monthly.

The average person has 8-9 social media accounts. This has doubled since 2013, when the average person just had 4-5 accounts.

Introduction

Social Media Mental Health Statistics: Social media has many uses, but it often causes the most harm to younger users. Teens face significant mental health issues due to social media, and the COVID-19 pandemic made things worse by increasing screen time and social media use. This created more opportunities for teens to encounter online problems, worsening the situation.

Teens also use social media to find communities and interest groups, watch live streams, and support good causes. It’s important to US teens that they feel welcome and safe online. Despite some problems, social media offers many chances for connection and entertainment. We shall shed more light on the Social Media Mental Health Statistics through this article.

Which county has the most Facebook users?

              There are more than 378 million Facebook users in India alone, making it the leading country in terms of Facebook audience size. To put this into context, if India’s Facebook audience were a country then it would be ranked third in terms of largest population worldwide. Apart from India, there are several other markets with more than 100 million Facebook users each: The United States, Indonesia, and Brazil with 193.8 million, 119.05 million, and 112.55 million Facebook users respectively.

              Facebook – the most used social media

              Meta, the company that was previously called Facebook, owns four of the most popular social media platforms worldwide, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Facebook, and Instagram. As of the third quarter of 2021, there were around 3,5 billion cumulative monthly users of the company’s products worldwide. With around 2.9 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most popular social media worldwide. With an audience of this scale, it is no surprise that the vast majority of Facebook’s revenue is generated through advertising.

              Facebook usage by device
              As of July 2021, it was found that 98.5 percent of active users accessed their Facebook account from mobile devices. In fact, almost 81.8 percent of Facebook audiences worldwide access the platform only via mobile phone. Facebook is not only available through mobile browser as the company has published several mobile apps for users to access their products and services. As of the third quarter 2021, the four core Meta products were leading the ranking of most downloaded mobile apps worldwide, with WhatsApp amassing approximately six billion downloads.

Austria - Individuals using the internet for participating in social networks was 64.74% in December of 2024, according to the EUROSTAT. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for Austria - Individuals using the internet for participating in social networks - last updated from the EUROSTAT on August of 2025. Historically, Austria - Individuals using the internet for participating in social networks reached a record high of 64.74% in December of 2024 and a record low of 35.28% in December of 2011.

I’ve compiled a list of the latest social media user statistics showing just how big social media has become and where it’s likely to go in the future.

Regional use of social media has a significant effect on the male and female social media statistics.

Cristiano Ronaldo has one of the most popular Instagram accounts as of April 2024.

              The Portuguese footballer is the most-followed person on the photo sharing app platform with 628 million followers. Instagram's own account was ranked first with roughly 672 million followers.

              How popular is Instagram?

              Instagram is a photo-sharing social networking service that enables users to take pictures and edit them with filters. The platform allows users to post and share their images online and directly with their friends and followers on the social network. The cross-platform app reached one billion monthly active users in mid-2018. In 2020, there were over 114 million Instagram users in the United States and experts project this figure to surpass 127 million users in 2023.

              Who uses Instagram?

              Instagram audiences are predominantly young – recent data states that almost 60 percent of U.S. Instagram users are aged 34 years or younger. Fall 2020 data reveals that Instagram is also one of the most popular social media for teens and one of the social networks with the biggest reach among teens in the United States.

              Celebrity influencers on Instagram
              Many celebrities and athletes are brand spokespeople and generate additional income with social media advertising and sponsored content. Unsurprisingly, Ronaldo ranked first again, as the average media value of one of his Instagram posts was 985,441 U.S. dollars.

The results of which gender uses which platforms are in.

As of January 2024, #love was the most used hashtag on Instagram, being included in over two billion posts on the social media platform. #Instagood and #instagram were used over one billion times as of early 2024.

A data visualization representing Uganda's internet subscribers vs social media tax payers

The County of San Mateo subscribes to Nextdoor, a social networking site based on where participants live: https://nextdoor.com/. This data shows participation in Nextdoor by area, posts, categories and date. No post content is shared in this dataset.

Sweden - Individuals using the internet for participating in social networks was 73.13% in December of 2024, according to the EUROSTAT. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for Sweden - Individuals using the internet for participating in social networks - last updated from the EUROSTAT on July of 2025. Historically, Sweden - Individuals using the internet for participating in social networks reached a record high of 73.43% in December of 2023 and a record low of 53.56% in December of 2011.

Instagram’s most popular post

              As of April 2024, the most popular post on Instagram was Lionel Messi and his teammates after winning the 2022 FIFA World Cup with Argentina, posted by the account @leomessi. Messi's post, which racked up over 61 million likes within a day, knocked off the reigning post, which was 'Photo of an Egg'. Originally posted in January 2021, 'Photo of an Egg' surpassed the world’s most popular Instagram post at that time, which was a photo by Kylie Jenner’s daughter totaling 18 million likes.
              After several cryptic posts published by the account, World Record Egg revealed itself to be a part of a mental health campaign aimed at the pressures of social media use.

              Instagram’s most popular accounts

              As of April 2024, the official Instagram account @instagram had the most followers of any account on the platform, with 672 million followers. Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo (@cristiano) was the most followed individual with 628 million followers, while Selena Gomez (@selenagomez) was the most followed woman on the platform with 429 million. Additionally, Inter Miami CF striker Lionel Messi (@leomessi) had a total of 502 million. Celebrities such as The Rock, Kylie Jenner, and Ariana Grande all had over 380 million followers each.

              Instagram influencers

              In the United States, the leading content category of Instagram influencers was lifestyle, with 15.25 percent of influencers creating lifestyle content in 2021. Music ranked in second place with 10.96 percent, followed by family with 8.24 percent. Having a large audience can be very lucrative: Instagram influencers in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom with over 90,000 followers made around 1,221 US dollars per post.

              Instagram around the globe

              Instagram’s worldwide popularity continues to grow, and India is the leading country in terms of number of users, with over 362.9 million users as of January 2024. The United States had 169.65 million Instagram users and Brazil had 134.6 million users. The social media platform was also very popular in Indonesia and Turkey, with 100.9 and 57.1, respectively. As of January 2024, Instagram was the fourth most popular social network in the world, behind Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp.

56.8% of the world’s total population is active on social media.

The chart shows the grounds of hatred reported for reviewed posts, based on data reported by social media platforms participating in the European Commission's Code of conduct. In 2021, sexual orientation and xenophobia were the most common grounds for hatred, while religion, race and ethnic origin were the least common grounds for hatred. (Note: The data on grounds of hatred are only an indication and are influenced by the number of notifications sent by each organisation as well as their field of work.)