How many people are on social media? Social media usage is one of the most popular online activities and in 2021, ** percent of the population in the United States had a social networking profile, representing a *** percent increase from the ** percent usage reach in the previous year. This equals approximately 223 million U.S. social media users as of 2020. Global social media accessAccording to estimates, the number of worldwide social media users reached *** billion in January 2021. The overall most popular social network based on active users is the American market leader Facebook. In January 2021, Facebook had some **** billion accounts, followed by YouTube and WhatsApp with roughly *** billion and *** billion users respectively. The regions with the highest penetration of social media users are Western and Northern Europe. Social media audiences in the United StatesAlthough knowing how many people use social media is a powerful indicator of the tremendous influence such websites and apps have in our day to day life, how people are using them and who these users are is also telling. A report on social media usage released in 2019 shows that among Americans, younger online audiences were more likely to use social networks than older generations. Social media users in the United States use different social networks for a wide range of purposes. In a February 2019 survey, Instagram was the top social network for viewing photos whereas Facebook was more popular for sharing content.

The number of Twitter users in the United States was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2028 by in total 4.3 million users (+5.32 percent). After the ninth consecutive increasing year, the Twitter user base is estimated to reach 85.08 million users and therefore a new peak in 2028. Notably, the number of Twitter users of was continuously increasing over the past years.User figures, shown here regarding the platform twitter, have been estimated by taking into account company filings or press material, secondary research, app downloads and traffic data. They refer to the average monthly active users over the period.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).Find more key insights for the number of Twitter users in countries like Canada and Mexico.

The number of Reddit users in the United States was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2028 by in total 10.3 million users (+5.21 percent). After the ninth consecutive increasing year, the Reddit user base is estimated to reach 208.12 million users and therefore a new peak in 2028. Notably, the number of Reddit users of was continuously increasing over the past years.User figures, shown here with regards to the platform reddit, have been estimated by taking into account company filings or press material, secondary research, app downloads and traffic data. They refer to the average monthly active users over the period and count multiple accounts by persons only once. Reddit users encompass both users that are logged in and those that are not.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).Find more key insights for the number of Reddit users in countries like Mexico and Canada.

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.

These are the key social media statistics that you need to know.

Global ad spend were expected to reach over $134 billion in 2022. This means that it has increased by over 17% yearly.

Which countries spent the most and least time on social media?

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

Social media is one of the go-to news sources in the United States – over one third of U.S. adults responding to a 2022 survey got their news from social media platforms every day, and a further 22 percent did so a few times or at least once per week. After the surge in social media news consumption in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, daily engagement fell in 2021, but the increase the following year suggests that daily news access on social networks could continue to grow in years to come.

The most popular social sites for news

An annual report surveying U.S. adults from 2019 to 2022 revealed that Facebook was the most popular social network used for news, followed by YouTube. Important to note here though is that TikTok was not included in the survey question for those years, a platform increasingly popular with younger generations. Whilst the share of adults regularly using TikTok for news aged 50 years or above was just five percent, among those aged between 18 and 29 years the figure was over five times higher.

Meanwhile, Twitter is journalists’ preferred social media site, with the share who use Twitter for their job at almost 70 percent. Since Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter however, some journalists raised concerns about the future of free speech on the platform.

Gen Z and social media news consumption

A 2022 survey found that half of all Gen Z respondents used social media for news every day. Gen Z is driving growth in social media news usage, a trend which will continue if the younger consumers belonging to this generation increase their engagement with news as they age.

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

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).

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

TikTok comes in 6th position in a list of the world’s most-used social media sites today.

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 February 2025, more than ** percent of the population of Uruguay was on social media. On the other hand, approximately ** percent of Haitians used social networking platforms. Among the largest Latin American markets, Brazil had the lowest social media penetration rate at **** percent, just below Colombia and Argentina. Online networking among Chilean young adults intensifies Young adults are the primary audience of social media in Chile. Nearly half of all Facebook users in the South American country were between 18 and 34 years old. The same age group accounted for almost ** percent of Chilean users of LinkedIn. This generation has also been devoting more of its time to this type of online activity. Obstacles for the expansion of social media in Brazil A handful of issues still set part of Latin America's online population apart from social networks. Despite having the biggest social media audiences in Latin America, countries like Brazil and Mexico still struggled to provide internet access to their populations, thus hindering social media penetration rates.

In 2022, there are around 23.14 million social media users in Peru, around 1.25 million more than the previous year. This figure is forecast to grow to 28.03 million users by 2027. In the same year, more than 68.68 percent of the population in the South American country accessed social media.

The North America Social Media Management Market would witness market growth of 21.6% CAGR during the forecast period (2024-2031). The US market dominated the North America Social Media Management Market by Country in 2023, and would continue to be a dominant market till 2031; thereby, achieving a

Between 2019 and 2020, the market shares of Facebook and Pinterest have declined in most of the six largest Latin American markets. In Brazil and Colombia, Facebook's market shared decreased by nearly 15 and 12 percent, respectively. Only in Chile Mark Zuckerberg's flagship saw an increase in market share: it went almost 5.2 percent up. Concurrently, Pinterest's market share in Chile decreased by over a third, while just in Brazil it went up – by around one third as well.

More videos, anyone? Even though YouTube’s market share in Latin American countries remains somewhat modest – rarely surpassing 15 percent – it has risen amidst COVID-19 outbreak in the region. In Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico, the market share of Google’s video platform increased by approximately 74, 70, and 57 percent, respectively. But not all social media users turned to YouTube more often while quarantining: its market share decreased by almost one fifth in Brazil.

stayhome (and double tap)

Instagram, which also belongs to Facebook, Inc., saw a more consistent expansion across Latin America’s key social media markets. In Brazil, its market share increased by nearly two thirds; in Mexico, by more than 50 percent; and in Peru, by over a fourth. Similarly, Twitter recorded growth in most of the countries listed, despite a two percent decrease in market share in Mexico. The market share of this San Francisco-based microblogging service rose by roughly 70 percent in Brazil and by 51 percent in Colombia.

The most significant cohorts of users on Instagram are aged 18 – 24.

In March 2025, ******** accounted for ** 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. ********* ranked second with ***** percent of all U.S. social media site visits, while X (previously Twitter) accounted for ***** 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 ** percent of Facebook users across the globe were using the platform’s social networking services exclusively via mobile phone, while only *** 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 *** million downloads, while Facebook and the instant-messaging service Messenger followed ranking third and fifth with *** million and **** 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 *** minutes per day in 2023, with a decrease to *** 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.