As of April 2024, almost 32 percent of global Instagram audiences were aged between 18 and 24 years, and 30.6 percent of users were aged between 25 and 34 years. Overall, 16 percent of users belonged to the 35 to 44 year age group.

              Instagram users

              With roughly one billion monthly active users, Instagram belongs to the most popular social networks worldwide. The social photo sharing app is especially popular in India and in the United States, which have respectively 362.9 million and 169.7 million Instagram users each.

              Instagram features

              One of the most popular features of Instagram is Stories. Users can post photos and videos to their Stories stream and the content is live for others to view for 24 hours before it disappears. In January 2019, the company reported that there were 500 million daily active Instagram Stories users. Instagram Stories directly competes with Snapchat, another photo sharing app that initially became famous due to it’s “vanishing photos” feature.
              As of the second quarter of 2021, Snapchat had 293 million daily active users.

Globally, about 25 percent of the population is under 15 years of age and 10 percent is over 65 years of age. Africa has the youngest population worldwide. In Sub-Saharan Africa, more than 40 percent of the population is below 15 years, and only three percent are above 65, indicating the low life expectancy in several of the countries. In Europe, on the other hand, a higher share of the population is above 65 years than the population under 15 years. Fertility rates The high share of children and youth in Africa is connected to the high fertility rates on the continent. For instance, South Sudan and Niger have the highest population growth rates globally. However, about 50 percent of the world’s population live in countries with low fertility, where women have less than 2.1 children. Some countries in Europe, like Latvia and Lithuania, have experienced a population decline of one percent, and in the Cook Islands, it is even above two percent. In Europe, the majority of the population was previously working-aged adults with few dependents, but this trend is expected to reverse soon, and it is predicted that by 2050, the older population will outnumber the young in many developed countries. Growing global population As of 2025, there are 8.1 billion people living on the planet, and this is expected to reach more than nine billion before 2040. Moreover, the global population is expected to reach 10 billions around 2060, before slowing and then even falling slightly by 2100. As the population growth rates indicate, a significant share of the population increase will happen in Africa.

In 2024, Generation Z represented 24.6 percent of the global population, making them the largest generation group in the world, according to the source. In 2030, Millennials were forecast to represent 21.6 percent of the population worldwide.

Until 2100, the world's population is expected to be ageing. Whereas people over 60 years made up less than 13 percent of the world's population in 2024, this share is estimated to reach 28.8 percent in 2100. On the other hand, the share of people between zero and 14 years was expected to decrease by almost ten percentage points over the same period.

Millennials were the largest generation group in the United States in 2024, with an estimated population of ***** million. Born between 1981 and 1996, Millennials recently surpassed Baby Boomers as the biggest group, and they will continue to be a major part of the population for many years. The rise of Generation Alpha Generation Alpha is the most recent to have been named, and many group members will not be able to remember a time before smartphones and social media. As of 2024, the oldest Generation Alpha members were still only aging into adolescents. However, the group already makes up around ***** percent of the U.S. population, and they are said to be the most racially and ethnically diverse of all the generation groups. Boomers vs. Millennials The number of Baby Boomers, whose generation was defined by the boom in births following the Second World War, has fallen by around ***** million since 2010. However, they remain the second-largest generation group, and aging Boomers are contributing to steady increases in the median age of the population. Meanwhile, the Millennial generation continues to grow, and one reason for this is the increasing number of young immigrants arriving in the United States.

In the Pakistan, the male population aged between 20 and 24 amounted to about **** percent of the total male population in 2023. In contrast, the male population aged between 20 and 24 in Hong Kong amounted to about *** percent of the total male population in 2023. The female Gen Z population in the Asia-Pacific region took up a smaller share among the female population overall compared to their male counterparts.

The statistic shows the global population as of mid-2022, sorted by age. In mid-2022, approximately two thirds of the global population were aged between 15 and 64 years.

As of February 2025, 37.5 percent of X’s (formerly Twitter) global audience was aged between 25 and 34 years. The second-largest age group demographic on the platform was represented by users aged between 18 and 24 years, with a share of 32.1 percent. Users aged less than 18 years accounted for two percent of users, while those aged 50 or older accounted for roughly 7.3 percent. X is a male-dominated platform As of January 2024, more than 60 percent of X users were male. Although all mainstream social media platforms tend to have a slightly more male-skewing audience, X stands out above Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and Facebook when it comes to user gender demographics. Overall, Pinterest is the only mainstream platform to have a higher share of female users. X Blue for you It is not uncommon for social media users to now have the chance to become subscribers of their chosen online networks for a monthly fee. X Blue is a subscription service from X that gives users special benefits and features. A blue verification mark, edit post functionality, fewer ads, priority ranking in chats, and longer video upload times are some of the perks offered.

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.

As of February 2024, over a third of online users worldwide were aged between 25 and 34 years. Website visitors in this age bracket constituted the biggest group of online users worldwide. Also, 19 percent of global online users were aged 18 to 24 years. The global digital population aged 65 or older represented approximately 4.2 percent of all internet users worldwide. Social media usage and Meta Social media is a major driver of internet use, with a global penetration rate of 62.2 percent. On average, internet users spend 143 minutes per day on social media, highlighting its significant impact on daily online activities. The usage of social media is mostly dominated by Meta platforms, which own four of the largest social media platforms. Facebook leads the ranking with over three billion active users, followed by Instagram and WhatsApp. Instagram's global popularity Meta’s social video platform, Instagram, had long been one of the most engaging social media platforms worldwide, and it was projected to reach 1.44 billion monthly active users. Instagram was particularly favored by users aged 18 to 34, thanks to its ability to offer a variety of interactive content, from images and carousels. This diverse range of content types was a key factor in its popularity among its young user base.

As of February 2025, it was found that around **** percent of TikTok's global audience were women between the ages of 18 and 24 years, while male users of the same age formed approximately **** percent of the platform's audience. The online audience of the popular social video platform was further composed of **** percent of female users aged between 25 and 34 years, and **** percent of male users in the same age group.

As of February 2025, it was found that men between the ages of 25 and 34 years made up Facebook's largest audience, accounting for 18.5 percent of global users. Additionally, Facebook's second-largest audience base could be found with men aged 18 to 24 years. Facebook connects the world Founded in 2004 and going public in 2012, Facebook is one of the biggest internet companies in the world with influence that goes beyond social media. It is widely considered as one of the Big Four tech companies, along with Google, Apple, and Amazon (all together known under the acronym GAFA). Facebook is the most popular social network worldwide and the company also owns three other billion-user properties: mobile messaging apps WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, as well as photo-sharing app Instagram. Facebook usersThe vast majority of Facebook users connect to the social network via mobile devices. This is unsurprising, as Facebook has many users in mobile-first online markets. Currently, India ranks first in terms of Facebook audience size with 378 million users. The United States, Brazil, and Indonesia also all have more than 100 million Facebook users each.

As of February 2025, ** percent of the YouTube global audience was composed of male users aged between 25 and 34 years, as well as around *** percent of female users of the same age. Male users aged between 35 and 44 years on the platform accounted for **** percent of the total, while women of the same age using YouTube had an audience share of *** percent in the examined period. YouTube’s global popularity The number of monthly active users on YouTube reached almost *** billion in April 2024, making it the second most popular social network on the internet. The platform's popularity spans all over the world, with India and the United States having the largest YouTube audiences. As of April 2024, the audience of YouTube in India was around *** million, while the United States recorded a YouTube audience of around *** million users.

YouTube’s digital revenues One of YouTube's leading monetization methods include advertising, with the company generating around **** billion U.S. dollars in the first quarter of 2024. Additionally, the platform generated over ** million dollars in the United States through in-app purchases, as well as over **** million U.S. dollars in revenues from mobile app users in Japan.

In 2024, Millennials were the largest generation group in the United States, making up about 21.81 percent of the population. However, Generation Z was not far behind, with Gen Z accounting for around 20.81 percent of the population in that year.

According to a survey conducted in 2023, ** percent of Gen Z in the United States said that people aged between 25 and 33 were best placed to facilitate change in the world. In comparison, ** percent believed that people aged between ** to ** would be best to change the world in that year.

As of May 2025, **** percent of Instagram users in the United States were aged between 25 and 34 years, making up the platform’s largest audience in the country. Overall, the group with the second-highest usage was those aged 18 to 24 years, with **** percent of users, followed by **** percent that were aged 35 to 44 years. The age group that used Instagram the least was those older than 65 years, making up *** percent of users, respectively. Popular social media platforms in the United States Instagram was the fourth most visited social media platform in the United States as of March 2025 across desktop, mobile, and tablet devices combined, accounting for ** percent of all social media visits in the country. Despite Instagram’s popularity, Facebook remained the leading social media platform by far in the U.S., accounting for more than ** percent of all social media visits. Pinterest and X (formerly Twitter) ranked second and third in terms of visits, with ***** percent and ***** percent of visits, respectively. Instagram’s global audience Instagram’s global popularity continues to surge, with no signs of slowing down. As of January 2024, the country with the largest Instagram audience was India with ****** million users, while the United States had the second-highest market with ***** million users, followed by Brazil, Indonesia, and Turkey, respectively. As of February 2025, Instagram was the third most popular social network globally, reaching *** billion monthly active users.

In 2023, about 17.7 percent of the American population was 65 years old or over; an increase from the last few years and a figure which is expected to reach 22.8 percent by 2050. This is a significant increase from 1950, when only eight percent of the population was 65 or over. A rapidly aging population In recent years, the aging population of the United States has come into focus as a cause for concern, as the nature of work and retirement is expected to change to keep up. If a population is expected to live longer than the generations before, the economy will have to change as well to fulfill the needs of the citizens. In addition, the birth rate in the U.S. has been falling over the last 20 years, meaning that there are not as many young people to replace the individuals leaving the workforce. The future population It’s not only the American population that is aging -- the global population is, too. By 2025, the median age of the global workforce is expected to be 39.6 years, up from 33.8 years in 1990. Additionally, it is projected that there will be over three million people worldwide aged 100 years and over by 2050.

More than **** of consumers belonging to Generation Z bought something on social media platforms, according to a survey in 2024. Almost a ***** of overall consumers bought on social media platforms. The consumer experience In a 2023 survey, Facebook and Instagram were the social media platforms offering the best shopping experience. To gain deeper insights into the elements constituting a satisfactory social commerce shopping journey from the user's viewpoint, key factors shaping consumers' heightened engagement with social commerce included, but were not limited to, deals and discounts, seamless purchasing processes, exclusive offers, and increased availability of customer reviews. Social shopping destinations Facebook is the leading social commerce platform globally, except among Gen Z, who favor Instagram and TikTok. However, the types of social media accounts that shoppers followed and purchased from varied by age group. Gen Z and Millennials predominantly bought from brand accounts, with Gen Z also showing a preference for social media influencers. Conversely, Gen X and Boomers preferred purchasing from trusted retailer accounts.

In 2023, there were approximately ***** million millennials in the United Kingdom, making it the largest generational cohort at that time. Millennials surpassed the Baby Boomer generation as the largest generation for the first time in 2019. The two youngest generations, Gen Z and Gen Alpha, numbered approximately **** million, and *** million respectively. Gen X are, as of the most recent year, the second-largest generation in the UK at ***** million people, with their parent's generation, the Silent Generation, numbering around *** million people in the same year. There were estimated to be ****** people who belonged to the Greatest Generation, the parents of the Baby Boomer generation, who lived through major events such as the Great Depression and World War Two. Post-War Baby Boom The baby boomer generation was the largest generation for much of this period due to the spike in births that happened after the Second World War. In 1947, for example, there were over *** million live births in the United Kingdom, compared with just ******* live births just thirty years later in 1977. Members of this generation are typically the parents of millennials, and were the driving force behind the countercultural movement of the 1960s, due to their large numbers relative to older generations at the time. The next generational cohort after Boomers are Generation X, born between 1965 and 1980. This generation had fewer members than the Boomer generation for most of its existence, and only became larger than it in 2021. Millennials and Gen Z As of 2022, the most common single year of age in the United Kingdom in 2020 was 34, with approximately ******* people this age. Furthermore, people aged between 30 and 34 were the most numerous age group in this year, at approximately 4.67 million people. As of 2022, people in this age group were Millennials, the large generation who came of age in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Many members of this generation entered the workforce following the 2008 financial crash, and suffered through high levels of unemployment during the early 2010s. The generation that followed Millennials, Generation Z, have also experienced tough socio-economic conditions recently, with key formative years dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and an increasingly unstable geopolitical situation.

This map layer shows the prevalent generations that make up the population of the United States using multiple scales. As of 2018, the most predominant generations in the U.S. are Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964), Millennials (born 1981-1998), and Generation Z (born 1999-2016). Currently, Millennials are the most predominant population in the U.S.A generation represents a group of people who are born around the same time and experience world events and trends during the same stage of life through similar mediums (for example, online, television, print, or radio). Because of this, people born in the same generation are expected to have been exposed to similar values and developmental experiences, which may cause them to exhibit similar traits or behaviors over their lifetimes. Generations provide scientists and government officials the opportunity to measure public attitudes on important issues by people’s current position in life and document those differences across demographic groups and geographic regions. Generational cohorts also give researchers the ability to understand how different developmental experiences, such as technological, political, economic, and social changes, influence people’s opinions and personalities. Studying people in generational groups is significant because an individual’s age is a conventional predictor for understanding cultural and political gaps within the U.S. population.Though there is no exact equation to determine generational cutoff points, it is understood that we designate generational spans based on a 15- to 20-year gap. The only generational period officially designated by the U.S. Census Bureau is based on the surge of births after World War II in 1946 and a significant decline in birth rates after 1964 (Baby Boomers). From that point, generational gaps have been determined by significant political, economic, and social changes that define one’s formative years (for example, Generation Z is considered to be marked by children who were directly affected by the al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001).In this map layer, we visualize six active generations in the U.S., each marked by significant changes in American history:The Greatest Generation (born 1901-1924): Tom Brokaw’s 1998 book, The Greatest Generation, coined the term ‘the Greatest Generation” to describe Americans who lived through the Great Depression and later fought in WWII. This generation had significant job and education opportunities as the war ended and the postwar economic booms impacted America.The Silent Generation (born 1925-1945): The title “Silent Generation” originated from a 1951 essay published in Time magazine that proposed the idea that people born during this period were more cautious than their parents. Conflict from the Cold War and the potential for nuclear war led to widespread levels of discomfort and uncertainty throughout the generation.Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964): Baby Boomers were named after a significant increase in births after World War II. During this 20-year span, life was dramatically different for those born at the beginning of the generation than those born at the tail end of the generation. The first 10 years of Baby Boomers (Baby Boomers I) grew up in an era defined by the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War, in which a lot of this generation either fought in or protested against the war. Baby Boomers I tended to have great economic opportunities and were optimistic about the future of America. In contrast, the last 10 years of Baby Boomers (Baby Boomers II) had fewer job opportunities and available housing than their Boomer I counterparts. The effects of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal led a lot of second-wave boomers to lose trust in the American government. Generation X (born 1965-1980): The label “Generation X” comes from Douglas Coupland’s 1991 book, Generation X: Tales for An Accelerated Culture. This generation was notoriously exposed to more hands-off parenting, out-of-home childcare, and higher rates of divorce than other generations. As a result, many Gen X parents today are concerned about avoiding broken homes with their own kids.Millennials (born 1981-1998): During the adolescence of Millennials, America underwent a technological revolution with the emergence of the internet. Because of this, Millennials are generally characterized by older generations to be technologically savvy.Generation Z (born 1999-2016): Generation Z or “Zoomers” represent a generation raised on the internet and social media. Gen Z makes up the most ethnically diverse and largest generation in American history. Like Millennials, Gen Z is recognized by older generations to be very familiar with and/or addicted to technology.Questions to ask when you look at this mapDo you notice any trends with the predominant generations located in big cities? Suburbs? Rural areas?Where do you see big clusters of the same generation living in the same area?Which areas do you see the most diversity in generations?Look on the map for where you, your parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents live. Do they live in areas where their generation is the most predominant?