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.

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

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

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.

As of the first quarter of 2025, photo and video sharing app Snapchat had 460 million daily active users worldwide, up from 460 million global DAU in the fourth quarter of 2024. The app has seen steady increases in daily active users since the beginning of 2019. Snapchat is relevant for teenagers Originally launched in 2011, Snapchat has become one of the most popular social messaging and photo sharing apps worldwide; making its CEO and co-founder Evan Spiegel one of the world’s richest social media entrepreneurs. With almost 800 million active users as of April 2024, Snapchat easily ranks among the most popular social networks worldwide. According to U.S. teenagers in fall 2023, Snapchat is the second most important social network of their generation, ahead of photo sharing competitor Instagram and other networks such as Twitter or Facebook. Overall, 48 percent of U.S. internet users aged 15 to 25 years were reportedly using Snapchat, the highest usage reach among any age group. When it comes to user satisfaction with social media, Snapchat’s performance is fair to middling. According to recent survey data, the social app scored 72 out of 100 points on a consumer satisfaction scale, ranking ahead of Twitter and Facebook but behind Pinterest and eternal rival Instagram.

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.

In 2021, there were 1.21 billion monthly active users of Meta's Instagram, making up over 28 percent of the world's internet users. By 2025, it has been forecast that there will be 1.44 billion monthly active users of the social media platform, which would account for 31.2 percent of global internet users.

How popular is Instagram?

Instagram, as of January 2022, was the fourth most popular social media platform in the world in terms of user numbers. YouTube and WhatsApp ranked in second and third place, respectively, whilst Facebook remained the most popular, with almost three billion monthly active users worldwide.

India had the largest number of Instagram users as of January 2022, with a total of over 230 million users in the country. The second-largest Instagram audience could be found in the United States, with almost 160 million people subscribing to the photo and video sharing app.

Gen Z and Instagram

As of September 2021, Gen Z users in the United States spent an average of five hours per week on Instagram. Although Instagram ranked third in terms of hours per week spent on the platform, Gen Z users spent considerably more time on TikTok, amounting to a weekly average of over 10 hours being spent on the mobile-first video app.

Most followed accounts on Instagram

As of May 2022, Instagram’s own account had 504.37 million followers. In terms of celebrities, Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo (@chistiano) had over 440.41 million followers on the social network. Moreover, the average media value of an Instagram post by Ronaldo was over 985,000 U.S. dollars.

The most liked post on Instagram as of May 2022 was Photo of an Egg, which was posted in 2019 by the account @world_record_egg. Photo of an Egg has not only exceeded 55 million likes on the platform, but it also has nearly 3.5 million comments, and the account itself has over 4.5 million Instagram followers. After mysterious posts published by the account, World Record Egg revealed itself as part of a mental health campaign aimed at the difficulties and demands of using social media.

Snapchat now boasts over 319 million daily active users. That means it’s one of the most engaging platforms. Snapchat currently has a total user base of 800 million.

As of the third quarter of 2024, internet users in South Africa spent more than **** hours and ** minutes online per day, ranking first among the regions worldwide. Brazil followed, with roughly **** hours of daily online usage. As of the examined period, Japan registered the lowest number of daily hours spent online, with users in the country spending an average of over **** hours per day using the internet. The data includes the daily time spent online on any device. Social media usage In recent years, social media has become integral to internet users' daily lives, with users spending an average of *** minutes daily on social media activities. In April 2024, global social network penetration reached **** percent, highlighting its widespread adoption. Among the various platforms, YouTube stands out, with over *** billion monthly active users, making it one of the most popular social media platforms. YouTube’s global popularity In 2023, the keyword "YouTube" ranked among the most popular search queries on Google, highlighting the platform's immense popularity. YouTube generated most of its traffic through mobile devices, with about 98 billion visits. This popularity was particularly evident in the United Arab Emirates, where YouTube penetration reached approximately **** percent, the highest in the world.

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

How much time do people spend on social media? As of 2019 and 2020, the average daily social media usage of internet users worldwide amounted to *** minutes per day, up from *** minutes in the previous year. Currently, the country with the most time spent on social media per day is the Philippines, with online users spending an average of ***** hours and ** minute on social media each day. In comparison, the daily time spent with social media in the U.S. was just *** hours and ***** minutes. Global social media usageCurrently, the global social network penetration rate is nearly ** percent. Western Europe had a ** percent social media penetration rate, topping the ranking of global social media usage by region. Eastern and Middle Africa closed the ranking with *** and ***** 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 flipside, respondents also felt that social media had worsened their personal privacy, increased a polarization in politics and heightened everyday distractions.

There are currently over 1.5 billion active users on TikTok worldwide.

As of January 2025, TikTok creator and comedian Khabane Lame was the most followed content creator on the platform. Lame, who is based in Italy, reached 162.4 million subscribers. Influencer Charlie D'Amelio followed closely in second position with 155.8 million followers. Jimmy Donaldson - operating on YouTube as MrBeast, ranked third, with a total of 107.8 million followers.

TikTok global users Popular video-sharing platform TikTok has gained immense popularity globally. As of April 2024, TikTok had over one billion monthly active users, making it one of the most widely used social media platforms worldwide. Around 45 percent of the total user base on TikTok were women, while approximately 54 percent of the popular social video platform users were men. In addition, TikTok has become a go-to platform for young people. As of July 2024, most of TikTok's global user base consisted of younger age groups, with 18.9 percent of TikTok's users being men aged between 18 and 24 years. TikTok usage and audience Since its launch in 2016, TikTok’s audience has increased significantly. As of July 2024, Indonesia and the United States were the countries with the largest TikTok audiences. Indonesia led with 157.6 million users, followed by the United States with 120.5 million users. The app has managed to catch users’ attention and keep its base entertained. So much so that, as of the second quarter of 2022, global users were spending around 95 minutes daily on TikTok, making it the most engaging among social media apps. Additionally, TikTok has quickly become one of the most popular platforms across different app stores. In September 2022, the video app had almost 24 million downloads on Google Play Store, making it the most downloaded app for Android users worldwide. In contrast, TikTok was the fifth most downloaded app on Apple App Store, with approximately 4.12 million global users downloads in June 2023.

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

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.

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

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

59% of adults in the united states are using Instagram daily.

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

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.