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.

Facebook is fast approaching 3 billion monthly active users. That’s about 36% of the world’s entire population that log in and use Facebook at least once a month.

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 2025, 5.56 billion individuals worldwide were internet users, which amounted to 67.9 percent of the global population. Of this total, 5.24 billion, or 63.9 percent of the world's population, were social media users. Global internet usage Connecting billions of people worldwide, the internet is a core pillar of the modern information society. Northern Europe ranked first among worldwide regions by the share of the population using the internet in 20254. In The Netherlands, Norway and Saudi Arabia, 99 percent of the population used the internet as of February 2025. North Korea was at the opposite end of the spectrum, with virtually no internet usage penetration among the general population, ranking last worldwide. Eastern Asia was home to the largest number of online users worldwide – over 1.34 billion at the latest count. Southern Asia ranked second, with around 1.2 billion internet users. China, India, and the United States rank ahead of other countries worldwide by the number of internet users. Worldwide internet user demographics As of 2024, the share of female internet users worldwide was 65 percent, five percent less than that of men. Gender disparity in internet usage was bigger in African countries, with around a ten percent difference. Worldwide regions, like the Commonwealth of Independent States and Europe, showed a smaller usage gap between these two genders. As of 2024, global internet usage was higher among individuals between 15 and 24 years old across all regions, with young people in Europe representing the most significant usage penetration, 98 percent. In comparison, the worldwide average for the age group 15–24 years was 79 percent. The income level of the countries was also an essential factor for internet access, as 93 percent of the population of the countries with high income reportedly used the internet, as opposed to only 27 percent of the low-income markets.

The average Twitter user spends 5.1 hours per month on the platform.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Social media platforms are integral to people's lives, offering ways to communicate, create and view content and share information. According to Ofcom, approximately 89% of UK internet users in 2023 used social media apps or sites. Teenagers and young adults are the biggest users, although there is rapid uptake among older age groups. Advertising is the primary revenue source for social media platforms, although subscription-based services are gaining momentum as platforms seek to diversify their incomes. TikTok is the success story of the last few years, becoming the most downloaded app between 2020 and 2022, according to Apptopia. The short-form video platform reported that it averaged revenue growth of over 450% between 2019 and 2022. After Musk's takeover, X, formerly known as Twitter, adjusted its content moderation and allowed previously banned accounts to return. As a result, over 600 advertisers have pulled their ads from the site because of fears their brand may be associated with malcontent. In response to falling ad revenue, X has introduced a subscription-based service which enables users to verify themselves and boosts the number of people who view their tweets. Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram have responded by introducing a similar service. Revenue is expected to grow by 14.3% in 2024-25, constrained by a slowdown in user growth for most major social media platforms. Over the five years through 2024-25, revenue is forecast to expand at a compound annual rate of 32.8% to reach £9.8 billion. Looking forward, regulations relating to how data is collected, stored, and shared will force advertisers and platforms to rethink how they can target their desired demographics. The rising prominence of AI will require the introduction of adequate regulations. The Online Safety Bill sets out new guidelines for social media platforms to abide by, with hefty fines in store for those who do not. Operating costs will swell as platforms look to meet consumers’ expectations, weighing on profit. Over the five years through 2029-30, social media platforms' revenue is projected to climb at an estimated 9.4% to reach £15.4 billion.

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.

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

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

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

As of April 2024, it was found that men between the ages of 25 and 34 years made up Facebook largest audience, accounting for 18.4 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.

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.

The Global Trust dataset measures how much trust people around the world have in major institutions and social networks. It contains two data files, one with the raw survey data and one putting the raw data into percentages of trust in certain institutions. These can be analyzed in different ways. The data comes from surveys of over 119,088 people from 113 countries. Survey respondents were asked such things as “How much do you trust each of the following: other people in your neighborhood; your national government; scientists; journalists; doctors and nurses; people who work at non-governmental or non-profit organizations; healers? Do you trust them a lot, some, not much, or not at all?" The National Trust Codebook contains both the survey and the national rate codebook files, titled “Survey” and “Rate” respectively. Both files contain the same variables such as neighbors, government, and journalists, with the only difference being that “Survey” has id as a variable to account for the 119,088 unique responses. The Survey file has the raw data of all the 119,088 unique responses and both categorical and ordinal variables. It can be used to analyze how different countries feel about trust in different people or institutions as well as how those variables can relate to each other. The Rate file creates a percentage of how much people from each country trust certain communities or institutions and this can be used to analyze how different countries feel about certain things, this allows room to analyze each country with each other in a more clear way than the raw data. Both files are unique in the sense of the data being worldwide, it is a unique trait to be able to compare from different countries survey respondents that were asked the same questions with the same methodology, making comparison all the more easy. Another interesting element of this survey data is the number of responses per nation. There were, at minimum, 1000 responses gathered from each nation featured in the survey. The sample size allows for better than typical representation for each country.

This dataset captures the popularity of news articles across various social media platforms, providing valuable insights into how news content performs online [1, 2]. It is a subset of a larger dataset, specifically designed for analysing engagement and reach of news items [1, 2]. The data includes key details about news articles and their final popularity scores on Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn [1-3]. It serves as an excellent resource for understanding social media trends and the dissemination of news [2].

Columns

The dataset features the following columns: * IDLink: A unique identifier for each news item [1, 2]. * Title: The title of the news item as it appeared from the official media sources [1, 2]. * Headline: The headline of the news item, also from official media sources [1, 2]. * Source: The original news outlet that published the news item [1, 2]. * Topic: The query topic used to obtain the news items from official media sources [1, 2]. * PublishDate: The date and time when the news item was published [1, 2]. * Facebook: The final popularity score of the news item on Facebook [2, 3]. * GooglePlus: The final popularity score of the news item on Google+ [2, 3]. * LinkedIn: The final popularity score of the news item on LinkedIn [2, 3]. This subset of the data is specifically noted to be missing the 'SentimentTitle' and 'SentimentHeadline' columns that are present in the full dataset [1].

Distribution

This dataset comprises approximately 37,000 news articles [1]. While exact row counts for files are not specified beyond this total, the dataset format is typically CSV [4]. * Unique Values: * IDLink: 37,288 unique values [3]. * Title: 32,366 unique values [3]. * Headline: 34,634 unique values [3]. * Source Distribution: * Bloomberg: 2% [3]. * Reuters: 1% [3]. * Other: 97% (from 35,990 sources) [3]. * Topic Distribution: * Economy: 36% [3]. * Obama: 31% [3]. * Other: 33% (from 12,165 topics) [3]. * Time Range Sample (2016): * 03/29 - 04/03: 2,239 items [5]. * 04/03 - 04/08: 2,020 items [5]. * 06/17 - 06/22: 1,650 items [5]. * 06/27 - 07/02: 2,024 items [5]. The data spans from 2016-03-29 to 2016-07-07 [6].

Usage

This dataset is ideal for: * Analysing news popularity trends across different social media platforms [2]. * Studying the impact of news content on online engagement [2]. * Exploratory data analysis of news consumption patterns [7]. * Understanding the spread of information in digital environments. * Developing models to predict social media reach for news articles. * Insights into media outlets' influence and topic relevance [1, 3].

Coverage

The dataset covers an approximate 8-month period, between November 2015 and July 2016 [2]. The specific subset provided covers 29 March 2016 to 07 July 2016 [6]. It includes news items on four primary topics: economy, Microsoft, Obama, and Palestine [2], with distribution details for 'economy' and 'obama' [3]. The region of coverage is global [8].

License

CCO

Who Can Use It

• Data Scientists and Analysts: For exploratory data analysis, feature engineering, and model building related to news popularity and social media engagement [7].
• Researchers: Studying media studies, social network analysis, and public opinion.
• Marketing Professionals: To understand content virality and optimise news dissemination strategies.
• Journalists and Media Organisations: For insights into their content performance and audience engagement on social platforms.

Dataset Name Suggestions

• Social Media News Popularity
• Online News Engagement Metrics
• Digital News Dissemination Data
• News Virality on Social Platforms
• Global News Popularity Insights

Attributes

Original Data Source: News Popularity in Multiple Social Media Platforms

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