Market leader Facebook was the first social network to surpass one billion registered accounts and currently sits at more than three billion monthly active users. Meta Platforms owns four of the biggest social media platforms, all with more than one billion monthly active users each: Facebook (core platform), WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram. In the third quarter of 2023, Facebook reported around four billion monthly core Family product users. The United States and China account for the most high-profile social platforms Most top ranked social networks with more than 100 million users originated in the United States, but services like Chinese social networks WeChat, QQ or video sharing app Douyin have also garnered mainstream appeal in their respective regions due to local context and content. Douyin’s popularity has led to the platform releasing an international version of its network: a little app called TikTok. How many people use social media? The leading social networks are usually available in multiple languages and enable users to connect with friends or people across geographical, political, or economic borders. In 2025, social networking sites are estimated to reach 5.42 billion users and these figures are still expected to grow as mobile device usage and mobile social networks increasingly gain traction in previously underserved markets.

China was home to ove 1.18 bilion social media users in 2025, making it the country with the largest audience. It is expected that by 2030, the number of social media users in the country will exceed 1.3 billion. Additionally, India currently has around 874 billion users, and is estimated to reach 1.12 billion by 2023.

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

Users spend an average of 19.6 hours per month on TikTok alone. This works out to be approximately 39 minutes per day.

More than three-quarters of the Russian online population aged 16 years and older used the Telegram messenger, thus making it the most-used social media platform among those listed in the ranking. WhatsApp ranked second, with a penetration rate of nearly 74 percent, followed by VK and TikTok. Social media usage in Russia In 2024, the daily time spent on social media in Russia was recorded at roughly two hours and 20 minutes per user on average. After Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) were blocked in Russia at the end of February and the beginning of March 2022, a significant increase in activity was recorded on VK and Telegram. For example, the daily audience on VK increased by almost nine percent, while the number of friends requests and feed views grew by 250 percent and 25 percent, respectively. YouTube From the global perspective, YouTube ranked second after Facebook, which remained the leading social media platform with about three billion active users. The U.S.-based channel MrBeast had the highest number of subscribers on YouTube with around 343 million as of January 2025. India-based T-Series followed with 284 million subscribers as of that month.

Twitter user statistics show a varying degree of how often users login to the platform. Here’s what it looks like.

As of September 2023, YouTube as the most popular social media platform for global users, with 97 percent of respondents reporting to use the popular video platform. YouTube was also the most popular social media among Gen Z users, with 96 percent of respondents in this age group reporting to have used the video platform as of the examined period. Facebook's usage kept steady among among the general digital population, with around eight in 10 reporting to have used the platform. In comparison, the social media's popularity was in free fall among gen Z users with only four in 10 among those surveyed reporting to engage with the Meta-powered platform.

YouTube boasts an average of 23.7 hours per month spent by users.

Social media addiction statistics show that over 210 million people worldwide suffer from social media addiction.

In March 2025, Facebook accounted for 56 percent of all social media site visits in the United States, confirming its position as the leading social media website by far. Other social media platforms, despite their popularity, had to make do with smaller shares of visits across desktop, mobile, and tablet devices combined. Pinterest ranked second with 16.73 percent of all U.S. social media site visits, while X (previously Twitter) accounted for 11.73 percent of the total visits in the country. Additionally, the U.S. is home to the third largest social media audience worldwide. Facebook: mobile vs desktop usage At the beginning of 2022, around 81 percent of Facebook users across the globe were using the platform’s social networking services exclusively via mobile phone, while only 1.5 percent reported using their desktop or laptop devices. In September 2022, three Facebook Inc. products occupied some of the leading positions as most downloaded social networking apps on the Apple App Store in the United States. WhatsApp’s messaging platform ranked second with more than 1.9 million downloads, while Facebook and the instant-messaging service Messenger followed ranking third and fifth with 1,3 million and 1.03 million downloads respectively. Social media evolution Between 2012 and 2024, the daily time spent on social networks worldwide experienced an almost constant increase, with users reaching an average of 151 minutes per day in 2023, with a decrease to 143 daily minutes of engagement in 2024. However, users’ favorite platforms have changed since 2019, and the power balance appears to be shifting further from Facebook’s market dominance. Not only Facebook’s user growth rate is estimated to slow down in the next years, but users belonging to Generation Z appear to prefer video-first social platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube.

The relevance of social media in today’s society is unprecedented, with user penetration reaching high values globally, but especially in Europe. Portugal is no exception, and, in 2024, WhatsApp was the most used social media platform, chosen by over 90 percent of internet users. Close behind was Instagram, selected by a rate of 82.4 percent of respondents. Social media platforms such as TikTok and Pinterest were used by a similar ratio of respondents, between 49 and 40 percent. Threads, on the other hand, was the platform with the lowest usage rate, as it was used by only 11 percent of the online population. In Portugal, social media is mostly for young people and women Social media use is common to all age groups, which exemplifies the democratization of these online platforms. Nevertheless, it is especially between the ages of 25 and 34 that social network penetration is the highest, followed by the age range between 18 and 24 years. Instagram, in particular, is very much used by the youngest generations, and it is women that record the highest usage shares, among all age groups. The Portuguese spend hours on social media daily, especially exchanging messages In Portugal, using social media is among the most time-consuming media activities performed daily. In 2024, the Portuguese spent on average 2 hours and 18 minutes using these social platforms, more than listening to music or reading news online. They mostly dedicated their time on social media sending private messages, and liking and commenting on posts by other users. Posting pictures or videos was performed by less than a half of the population in Portugal, which demonstrates that social platforms are mostly used to communicate with acquaintances.

The vast majority of TikTok users are below 30 years old. Approximately 37 million Gen-Zers used TikTok in the US.

As of early 2025, Saudi Arabia had the highest social media penetration rate globally out of selected countries and territories, with a whopping 102 percent. UAE and South Korea followed, with 96 percent and 94 percent of active usage reach, respectively. Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria had some of the lowest social network penetration rates in the world, with less than 26 percent of the population accessing social media in each country. How many people use social media? Although the top three countries with the highest social media penetration rates globally were in Eastern and Southwestern Asia in 2023, the region with the greatest social media reach was Northern Europe with 83.6 percent, followed by Western Europe with 83.3 percent and Southern Europe with 76.7 percent. In 2022, more than 4.59 billion people reported using social media, and this number is projected to reach almost six billion by 2027. Facebook: the most popular social network Meta’s Facebook, the social media giant and the first platform to reach this kind of scale, was the leading social network as of October 2023 with more than three billion global monthly active users (MAU). Additionally, Meta owns four of the biggest social media platforms, all with more than one billion MAU each: Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger. As of January 2023, India was home to Facebook’s largest audience with more than 300 million MAU, followed by the United States with 175 million MAU.

There are more male LinkedIn users than females – although it is pretty balanced.

How many people use social media? Social media usage is one of the most popular online activities. In 2024, over five billion people were using social media worldwide, a number projected to increase to over six billion in 2028.

Who uses social media? Social networking is one of the most popular digital activities worldwide and it is no surprise that social networking penetration across all regions is constantly increasing. As of January 2023, the global social media usage rate stood at 59 percent. This figure is anticipated to grow as lesser developed digital markets catch up with other regions when it comes to infrastructure development and the availability of cheap mobile devices. In fact, most of social media’s global growth is driven by the increasing usage of mobile devices. Mobile-first market Eastern Asia topped the global ranking of mobile social networking penetration, followed by established digital powerhouses such as the Americas and Northern Europe.

How much time do people spend on social media? Social media is an integral part of daily internet usage. On average, internet users spend 151 minutes per day on social media and messaging apps, an increase of 40 minutes since 2015. On average, internet users in Latin America had the highest average time spent per day on social media.

What are the most popular social media platforms? Market leader Facebook was the first social network to surpass one billion registered accounts and currently boasts approximately 2.9 billion monthly active users, making it the most popular social network worldwide. In June 2023, the top social media apps in the Apple App Store included mobile messaging apps WhatsApp and Telegram Messenger, as well as the ever-popular app version of Facebook.

Context

From the beginning of 2020 to April 8th (the day Wuhan reopened), this dataset summarizes the social media hotspots and what people focused in the mainland of China, as well as the epidemic development trend during this period. The dataset containing four .csv files covers most social media platforms in the mainland: Sina Weibo, TikTok, Toutiao and Douban.

Sina Weibo

a platform based on fostering user relationships to share, disseminate and receive information. Through either the website or the mobile app, users can upload pictures and videos publicly for instant sharing, with other users being able to comment with text, pictures and videos, or use a multimedia instant messaging service. The company initially invited a large number of celebrities to join the platform at the beginning, and has since invited many media personalities, government departments, businesses and non-governmental organizations to open accounts as well for the purpose of publishing and communicating information. To avoid the impersonation of celebrities, Sina Weibo uses verification symbols; celebrity accounts have an orange letter "V" and organizations' accounts have a blue letter "V". Sina Weibo has more than 500 million registered users;[12] out of these, 313 million are monthly active users, 85% use the Weibo mobile app, 70% are college-aged, 50.10% are male and 49.90% are female. There are over 100 million messages posted by users each day. With 90 million followers, actress Xie Na holds the record for the most followers on the platform. Despite fierce competition among Chinese social media platforms, Sina Weibo has proven to be the most popular; part of this success may be attributable to the wider use of mobile technologies in China.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sina_Weibo]

Douyin

Douyin (English: TikTok), referred to as TikTok, is a short-video social application on mobile phones. Users can record 15-second short videos, which can easily complete mouth-to-mouth (to mouth), and built-in special effects The user can leave a message to the video. Since September 2016, Toutiao has been launched online and is positioned as a short music video community suitable for Chinese young people. The application is vertical music UGC short videos, and the number of users has grown rapidly since 2017. In June 2018, Douyin reached 500 million monthly active users worldwide and 150 million daily active users in China. [https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%8A%96%E9%9F%B3]

Toutiao

Toutiao or Jinri Toutiao is a Chinese news and information content platform, a core product of the Beijing-based company ByteDance. By analyzing the features of content, users and users’ interaction with content, the company's algorithm models generate a tailored feed list of content for each user. Toutiao is one of China's largest mobile platforms of content creation, aggregation and distribution underpinned by machine learning techniques, with 120 million daily active users as of September 2017. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toutiao]

Douban

Douban.com (Chinese: 豆瓣; pinyin: Dòubàn), launched on March 6, 2005, is a Chinese social networking service website that allows registered users to record information and create content related to film, books, music, recent events, and activities in Chinese cities. It could be seen as one of the most influential web 2.0 websites in China. Douban also owns an internet radio station, which ranks No.1 in the iOS App Store in 2012. Douban was formerly open to both registered and unregistered users. For registered users, the site recommends potentially interesting books, movies, and music to them in addition to serving as a social network website such as WeChat, Weibo and record keeper; for unregistered users, the site is a place to find ratings and reviews of media. Douban has about 200 million registered users as of 2013. The site serves pan-Chinese users, and its contents are in Chinese. It covers works and media in Chinese and in foreign languages. Some Chinese authors and critics register their official personal pages on the site. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douban]

Content

Weibo realTimeHotSearchList can be regarded as a platform for gathering celebrity gossip, social life and major news. In this document, I collect the top 50 topics of the hot search list every 12 hours during the day, so there are 100 hot topics each day. These topics are converted into English by Google translation, although the translation effect is not ideal due to sentence segmentation and language background deviation. In this document, I created a new column ['Coron-Related ( 1 yes, 0 not ) '] to mark topics related to the new crown, if relevant, it is marked as 1, if not then marked empty or 0. The google translation is extremely inaccurate (so maybe google the Chinese title to confirm is the best bet...

56.5% of Facebook users worldwide are male. This is in direct contrast to only 43.5% of Facebook being female.

The number of social media users in the United States was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2029 by in total 26 million users (+8.55 percent). After the ninth consecutive increasing year, the social media user base is estimated to reach 330.07 million users and therefore a new peak in 2029. Notably, the number of social media users of was continuously increasing over the past years.The shown figures regarding social media users have been derived from survey data that has been processed to estimate missing demographics.The shown data are an excerpt of Statista's Key Market Indicators (KMI). The KMI are a collection of primary and secondary indicators on the macro-economic, demographic and technological environment in up to 150 countries and regions worldwide. All indicators are sourced from international and national statistical offices, trade associations and the trade press and they are processed to generate comparable data sets (see supplementary notes under details for more information).

How does Truth Social compare to other social media platforms? There are around 2 million active Truth Social users.

Self Media Platform Market size is growing at a moderate pace with substantial growth rates over the last few years and is estimated that the market will grow significantly in the forecasted period i.e. 2024 to 2031.

Global Self Media Platform Market Drivers

The market drivers for the Self Media Platform Market can be influenced by various factors. These may include:

Increasing Digital Content Consumption: The rapid rise in digital content consumption across various platforms has significantly fueled the Self Media Platform Market. With more individuals and businesses seeking to create and distribute content, there is an increasing demand for user-friendly platforms that empower creators. The proliferation of smartphones and high-speed internet has made content creation more accessible, leading to a surge in blogs, videos, and social media posts. This shift in consumer behavior, where audiences prefer engaging with authentic content from individuals rather than traditional brands, drives platforms to innovate and enhance features tailored for creators, ensuring a diverse range of expressive mediums.

Growing Influence of Social Media: Social media's expanding influence serves as a crucial driver for the Self Media Platform Market. As platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube become household names, they attract vast audiences and consequently create opportunities for content creators. Results show that individuals rely on social media personalities for recommendations and inspiration, which fosters a robust self-publishing ecosystem. Brands are increasingly leveraging these influencers for marketing strategies, thus incentivizing new users to join self media platforms. This symbiotic relationship between self media and social media accelerates content virality, making it imperative for creators to adopt innovative approaches to maintain audience engagement.

Global Self Media Platform Market Restraints

Several factors can act as restraints or challenges for the Self Media Platform Market. These may include:

Regulatory Challenges: Regulations surrounding digital content, data privacy, and advertising vary greatly across regions, creating complexities for self media platforms. Stricter compliance requirements can lead to increased operational costs and hinder the ability to deploy innovative features quickly. Laws such as GDPR in Europe emphasize user consent and data protection, requiring platforms to invest in legal frameworks and technologies. Furthermore, potential fines for non-compliance pose financial risks. These regulatory obstacles may limit market entry for new players and stifle creativity within existing platforms, as they prioritize adherence over user engagement and growth strategies.

Market Saturation: The self media platform market has experienced rapid expansion, leading to saturation in certain niches. Numerous platforms vying for the same audience can result in fierce competition, making it challenging for new entrants to gain a foothold. The abundance of existing options may lead users to stick with established platforms, stifling innovation and discouraging loyalty. Additionally, the declining user engagement rates on many platforms can mitigate growth opportunities. As consumer preference becomes more fragmented, platforms must differentiate themselves significantly to attract and retain users, which often requires substantial investments in marketing and unique features.