According to a 2023 survey conducted in the United States, teenagers spent an average of 4.8 hours every day on social media platforms. Girls spent 5.3 hours on social networks daily, compared to 4.4 hours for boys. YouTube and TikTok were the most popular online networks among those aged 13 to 19, with 1.9 and 1.5 hours of average daily engagement, respectively. The most used platform for girls was TikTok, while the most used platform for boys was YouTube. Are teens constantly connected to social media? YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat are the most attractive and time-consuming platforms for young internet users. A survey conducted in the U.S. in 2023 found that 62 percent of teenagers were almost constantly connected to Instagram, and 17 percent were almost constantly connected to TikTok. Overall, 71 percent of teens used YouTube daily, and 47 percent used Snapchat daily. Furthermore, YouTube had a 93 percent reach among American teens in 2023, down from 95 percent in 2022. Teens and their internet devices For younger generations especially, social media is mostly accessed via mobile devices, and almost all teenagers in the United States have smartphone access. A 2023 survey conducted in the U.S. found that 92 percent of teens aged 13 to 14 years had access to a smartphone at home, as well as 97 percent of those aged 15 to 17. Additionally, U.S. girls were slightly more likely than their male counterparts to have access to a smartphone.

In 2024, children in the United Kingdom spent an average of *** minutes per day on TikTok. This was followed by Instagram, as children in the UK reported using the app for an average of ** minutes daily. Children in the UK aged between four and 18 years also used Facebook for ** minutes a day on average in the measured period. Mobile ownership and usage among UK children In 2021, around ** percent of kids aged between eight and 11 years in the UK owned a smartphone, while children aged between five and seven having access to their own device were approximately ** percent. Mobile phones were also the second most popular devices used to access the web by children aged between eight and 11 years, as tablet computers were still the most popular option for users aged between three and 11 years. Children were not immune to the popularity acquired by short video format content in 2020 and 2021, spending an average of ** minutes per day engaging with TikTok, as well as over ** minutes on the YouTube app in 2021. Children data protection In 2021, ** percent of U.S. parents and ** percent of UK parents reported being slightly concerned with their children’s device usage habits. While the share of parents reporting to be very or extremely concerned was considerably smaller, children are considered among the most vulnerable digital audiences and need additional attention when it comes to data and privacy protection. According to a study conducted during the first quarter of 2022, ** percent of children’s apps hosted in the Google Play Store and ** percent of apps hosted in the Apple App Store transmitted users’ locations to advertisers. Additionally, ** percent of kids’ apps were found to collect persistent identifiers, such as users’ IP addresses, which could potentially lead to Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) violations in the United States. In the United Kingdom, companies have to take into account several obligations when considering online environments for children, including an age-appropriate design and avoiding sharing children’s data.

How much time do people spend on social media? As of 2025, the average daily social media usage of internet users worldwide amounted to 141 minutes per day, down from 143 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 3 hours and 49 minutes on social media each day. In comparison, the daily time spent with social media in the U.S. was just 2 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.

Teenagers are the 2nd largest group of people affected by social media addiction. Teens ages 13 to 18 years old spend a significant amount of their free time on social media with an average of 3 hours a day.

Today the average time spent on social media is 2 hours and 24 minutes today for people aged 16 to 64.

In this post, I'll give you all the social media addiction statistics you need to be aware of to moderate your social media use.

Gen Z and Millennials are the biggest social media users of all age groups.

The results might surprise you when looking at internet users that are active on social media in each country.

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.

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.

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

As of the third quarter of 2024, the average daily time spent using the internet on mobile phones among people in Malaysia was around **** hours and ** minutes. By comparison, people spent around *** hours and ** minutes on social media every day. These numbers signified the importance of being present on the internet among Malaysians. Internet accessibility in Malaysia Presumably for convenience reasons, almost every internet user in Malaysia preferred accessing the internet on their smartphone. The upward trend of population coverage of 4G LTE mobile network in the country since 2016 may have contributed to this preference. Besides, Malaysia is one of the countries with the highest rates of mobile internet penetration in Asia. Main activities on the internet Malaysia has shown significant improvement in its internet infrastructure in recent years, which has allowed the internet users in the country to be more active online. The internet usage in Malaysia has mostly revolved around personal purposes, such as participating in social networks. As of January 2024, Malaysia recorded around ** million active social media users. A 2020 survey revealed that every internet user in Malaysia had about 9.6 social media accounts on average.

90% of people aged 18-29 use social media in some form. 15% of people aged 23-38 admit that they are addicted to social media.

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

Over 210 million people worldwide suffer from social media addiction.

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

The results of which gender uses which platforms are in.

Facebook and YouTube are still the most used social media platforms today.

Teenagers make up the largest group of active users on TikTok.

The average weekly time spent watching television in Canada from September 2023 to May 2024 was around ** hours a week among adults aged 18 or above. Those between the age of 25 and 54 watched **** hours per week. Meanwhile, teens watched just ***** hours each week. Traditional vs. digital media consumption in Canada According to the most recent data, Canadians spent over ** hours a day with major media in 2021. Taking a deeper look at the specific media split, on average, adults in the country spent *** minutes with traditional media, and the largest portion of time – *** minutes – consuming digital media of all sorts that year. Online video users in Canada In 2021 it was measured that ** percent of the Canadian population watched TV online. The ability to watch time-shifted TV, as opposed to live viewing, has brought about services such as subscription video-on-demand. It is believed that in 2021 there were **** million people subscribing to Netflix in Canada. The popularity and accessibility of programming on such platforms also introduced the notion of binge viewing, defined as watching at least three episodes of a TV show in one sitting.