How many people use social media? Social media usage is one of the most popular online activities. In 2024, over **** ******* people were using social media worldwide, a number projected to increase to over *** 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 ** 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 *** minutes per day on social media and messaging apps, an increase of ** 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 *** billion registered accounts and currently boasts approximately *** 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.

As of 2021, Facebook, recently rebranded as Meta, was the social media platform used most often by 47 percent of social networking users in the United States. In 2015, Facebook was the most used platform by 65 percent of social media users, demonstrating a decrease of almost 20 percent. During the same time frame, Instagram has continued to grow in popularity, with 18 percent of users saying it was their most often used platform in 2021, an increase of 11 percent since 2015. Snapchat was the most used platform by 14 percent of respondents in 2018 and has since continued to decline. In 2020, TikTok was the most accessed platform for three percent of users and by 2021 it had more than doubled to seven percent.

In Portugal, the share of people aged 18 years old who use social media for six hours or more per day totaled 27.9 percent, during weekdays, and 23.7 percent during the weekend. By 2023, 15 percent of young individuals used social media for six hours or more per day.

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 statistic shows the social network user growth rate on social networks in China between 2016 and 2021. As of 2021, the number of social network users increased by 5.6 percent compared to the previous year. Chinese internet users have about eight social media accounts on average.

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.

The statistic gives information on the average time engaged with news articles on a smartphone in the United States as of September 2015, sorted by article length and the social media source. According to the source, long-form articles found on Twitter were engaged with for an average of 133 seconds.

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.

According to a survey conducted in the United States in 2023, ** percent of social media users aged between 13 and 17 years used YouTube, down from ** percent in 2022. As for TikTok, ** percent of U.S. teens used the app, down from ** percent in 2022. Additionally, Snapchat, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and Twitch all saw a slight ******* in usage amongst teens in the United States. Facebook and WhatsApp saw increases in usage among this demographic.

In 2022, around ** percent of the New Zealand population were active social media users. The social media penetration rate has continued to increase, in-line with the growing digitalization of the country. While not the most active country in the Asia Pacific region, New Zealand still ranked in the top ten in terms of social media penetration out of countries from Asia Pacific. How are Kiwis using social media? Most of the population use social media on a mobile device. With increasing smartphone usage and accessibility, current global trends look set to establish the standard for mobile-only social media usage in the near future. In fact, many social media services are better experienced on a mobile device. An average of *** hour and ** minutes per day were spent on social media by internet users in the country in 2020. This is much lower than the approximate **** hours per day spent by online users in the Philippines. Which social media are the most popular? The most popular social networks in the country included YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. YouTube and Facebook dominated the market, both with over ** percent penetration rates. Facebook was popular among all age groups, with the highest number of Facebook users in the 25 to 34-year age group. Instagram has gained popularity with younger generations in the country.

Over the period presented, the value of social media in Poland has been steadily increasing. In 2023, the value amounted to over 1.2 billion zloty.

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.

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.

With the ease of internet access, the number of social media users in India stood at 518 million in 2020. Furthermore, the social network users in the country were expected to be almost 1.5 billion in 2040. Facebook remained the popular choice among the social media platforms as of 2020.

What was the attraction and who was attracted to it?

The Indian Premier League, an annual cricket tournament conducted across major cities in the country might hold the answer. The IPL, one in many cricketing events followed religiously in India, had the highest attendance among all cricket leagues worldwide. Apart from the attendance, fans seemed to be keen on updates about their favorite teams. The IPL teams registered over 59 million likes on Facebook alone and more than 81 million followers on Twitter. Most of the Facebook usage came from the younger generation, aged between 18-24 years to be precise, with over 97 million users in 2018.

How was this achieved?

Increased availability of internet connections and access in recent years, propelled by the central government's Digital India initiative was directly proportional in the growth of social media users. Internet penetration had been on the rise with over 34 percent of the Indians being able to access the internet in 2017, which made the South Asian country the second largest market globally after China.

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 total number of active social media users has noticeably increased in Russia, except for 2017, when the audience dropped in volume across the country. By January 2023, there were 106 million active users of social media platforms in Russia.  

Popular social media platforms in Russia

VK (Vkontakte) was the leading social media platform in the country with a penetration rate of over 75 percent as of the third quarter of 2022. The platform in question gained momentum after Meta platforms Facebook and Instagram were banned in Russia on the grounds of extremism in March 2022. By November 2022, VK counted nearly 85 monthly users.

Social media usage in Russia

The increasingly interconnected world means that more and more Russians use social media these days. In August 2021, the most frequently employed devices for connecting to social networks were mobile appliances. This was particularly the case of Instagram and Telegram, where 93 percent and 99 percent used only mobile phones to access the social networks in question, respectively. Among the most frequent activities on social media were sending private messages, with every six in 10 Russians reporting doing it in 2022.

 Over the period presented, the share of social media in the total online advertising market in Poland has gradually increased. In 2023, social media accounted for **** percent of the online advertising market in the country.   Social media advertising in Poland     In 2024, the social media advertising expenditure amounted to ****** million U.S. dollars. According to the Statista Digital Market Outlook, the spending will continue to increase and reach *** million U.S. dollars by 2028. Polish users between 18 and 34 years old constituted the highest share of the country’s social media advertising audience; women made up the higher share in each age group. In the same year, YouTube was the leader in terms of social media advertising reach, with a **** percent reach. Facebook and Messenger followed.

Influencer marketing in Poland    As a form of social media advertising, influencer marketing revolves around endorsements and product placements from online creators. Polish influencers mostly choose Instagram as their main communication channel. Facebook and YouTube also figured among the most popular platforms for influencer advertising. Regarding advertising categories, about ***** in ** Polish influencers promoted beauty products; relatively few advertised animal- and literature-related products and services. A survey conducted in 2022 showed that exaggerated and overly pushy product presentation was the leading mistake made by influencers.

This statistic shows the user share of the most popular social media platforms among 13 to 17-year-olds in Finland in 2015. During the period under survey, roughly 75 percent of the respondents stated they used the social media platform Facebook.

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.

The statistic gives the results of a survey regarding the average time spent per day by young adults on social media in Delhi in 2015. Approximately 15 percent of young adults in the capital city spent between two and four hours on social media daily on an average.

The daily social media access of internet users in Asia Pacific as of July 2015, broken down by country can be found here.