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.

As of January 2025, the number of social media users in Taiwan amounted to around 18.4 million, accounting for around 80 percent of the island's total population. YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram were the most popular social media platforms in Taiwan. Less active but highly relevant When compared with other users in Asia-Pacific region, Taiwanese people appeared to be less likely to stick around on social media and they also owned fewer social media accounts. However, survey results showed that social media could soon replace TV as the major news source. Besides, many Taiwanese consumers use social media to discover brands and products. YouTube vs Facebook It could be surprising to see YouTube has leapfrogged Facebook in Taiwan in terms of audience reach. The video-sharing platform has amassed about 18 million users on the island, representing 79.4 percent of its internet population. On the other hand, the usage rate of Facebook fell to about 79.8 percent in 2022 and was estimated to further drop to 72.7 percent in 2026. Facebook’s declining popularity across the world reflects that video is the future of content marketing.

As of 2022, 26 percent of worldwide social media users were located in Eastern Asia, followed by 18.44 percent of using being located in Southern Asia. Overall, Northern America accounted for almost 9.5 percent of all social media users, whilst Central Africa made up just 0.46 percent.

During a 2025 survey among marketers worldwide, around 83 percent reported using Facebook for marketing purposes. Instagram and LinkedIn followed, respectively mentioned by 78 and 69 percent of the respondents. The global social media marketing segment According to the same study, 60 percent of responding marketers intended to increase their organic use of YouTube for marketing purposes throughout that year. LinkedIn and Instagram followed with similar shares, rounding up the top three social media platforms attracting a planned growth in organic use among global marketers in 2025. Their main driver is increasing brand exposure and traffic, which led the ranking of benefits of social media marketing worldwide. Social media for B2B marketing Social media platform adoption rates among business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) marketers vary according to each subsegment's focus. While B2C professionals prioritize Facebook and Instagram, both run by Meta, Inc., due to their popularity among online audiences, B2B marketers concentrate their endeavors on Microsoft-owned LinkedIn due to its goal to connect people and companies in a corporate context.

According to a survey of social media users aged between 16 and 24 years in the United Kingdom, ** percent of respondents used the ********* mobile app daily as of October 2022. Approximately ***** in ** respondents reported using social video app TikTok and YouTube on a daily basis, respectively. New social app app BeReal, which prompts users to post content once per day, was used by less than ***** in ** respondents aged between 16 and 24 years.

In 2022, the number of global social media audiences increased by **** percent compared to the previous year. Worldwide social network user growth is projected to slow down to **** percent by 2027. There are currently over *** billion social media users worldwide.

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).

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.

According to a 2022 survey conducted in the United States, ** percent of Generation Z respondents reported spending more than **** hours on social media daily - almost ****** the amount of time adults of other generations spent on social media daily. Overall, *** in **** adults spent less than *** hour per day on social media.

A survey conducted in January 2022 revealed that 18 to 25-year-olds constituted the largest share of social media users in India, with ** percent using six to nine social media platforms at a time. Contrariwise, nearly *********** of the respondents aged 56 and above claimed to not having used social media platforms. The source noticed that people residing in urban areas were using more social media platforms than those in rural areas.

According to a September 2022 survey, 18 percent of social media users in the United States felt that Facebook protected their privacy and data, down from 27 percent in 2021. Overall, Millennials trusted the social media giant the most with their data in 2022, whilst Baby boomers were the least trusting, with just one in ten belonging to this generation feeling that Meta's Facebook protected their privacy and data.

According to a survey conducted in the United States in 2022, ** percent of pre-teens were using social media applications. Overall, ** percent of respondents aged 11 to 12 years were using TikTok, and ** percent were using Snapchat. Both TikTok and Snapchat state that users of their apps must be at least 13 years of age, with the latter being in compliance with the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Even though Discord and Facebook also have age restrictions of 13 years, ** percent and ** percent of pre-teens were using the online platforms, respectively.

According to a survey of social media users aged between 16 and 24 years in the United Kingdom, ** percent of respondents reported spending between one and two hours per day using TikTok, while ** percent reported spending between three and four hours per day on the social video app. Video platform ******* commanded the second highest engagement in terms of time spent, with ** percent of respondents reporting spending between one and two hours on the platform, and ** percent of respondents reporting spending five or more hours on YouTube daily. Approximately *** in ** respondents reported spending ** minutes or less daily engaging with the social and photo app BeReal.

According to data collected in April 2022 in the United States, Telegram was the alternative social media platform that claimed to provide necessary privacy settings and a conscious approach to handling user data. Rumble appeared to have none of the mentioned online privacy control options among all the platforms. Gab and Parler were relatively neutral, claiming they wouldn't sell user data or have targeted third-party ads at the time of the research.

In 2022, ******* was the most used social platform among children and teenagers in the United Kingdom, with ** percent of respondents stating that they had used the service. ******** ranked second, with ** percent of kids and teens in the UK being active on the platform. Additionally, usage of TikTok and Snapchat increased from 2021 to 2021 among those aged three to 17 in the UK. Youth accounts on the rise again From ** percent in 2012, the share of children aged 12 to 15 years of age with a social media account fell to ** percent in 2018, but increased again in 2020, peaking at ** percent. Despite some major social networks setting minimum age limits in their terms of service, ** percent of children aged 5 to 7 years had a social media account in 2020, according to Ofcom. Facebook falling out of favor with teens Among teens and young adults in the United States, Youtube and Instagram had a higher reach than any other social network, slightly ahead of Facebook and Snapchat. When you remove young adults from the picture, Snapchat is clearly the most important social network and Facebook barely comes into the equation. Since the Fall/Autumn period of 2017, less than ten percent of teens in the United States said Facebook was their most important social network, compared with more than ** percent of teens who nominated Snapchat. The new hot trend among Gen Z is TikTok, selected by ** percent of respondents and ranking second.

According to an online survey conducted in 2022 in the United States, 87 percent of journalists said that social media had a very or somewhat positive impact on promoting stories, whilst 79 percent said that it helped them to connect with their audience. Overall, three-quarters of U.S. based journalists said that social media enabled them to identify which stories to cover. However, 67 percent of journalists in the U.S. said that social media had a negative impact on journalism.

As of October 2025, 6.04 billion individuals worldwide were internet users, which amounted to 73.2 percent of the global population. Of this total, 5.66 billion, or 68.7 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 2025. 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 10-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 considerable usage penetration, 98 percent. In comparison, the worldwide average for the age group of 15 to 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.

As of February 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 usage Currently, 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 and friends. Global impact of social media Social 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 polarization in politics, and heightened everyday distractions.

A global survey conducted in the second quarter of 2025 found that the main reason for using social media was to stay in touch with friends and family, cited by **** percent of users. Nearly *** in **** respondents reported using social platforms to fill spare time, while fewer than *** in **** said they used them to follow celebrities and influencers. The most popular social network Facebook dominates the social media landscape. The world's most popular social media platform turned 20 in February 2024, and it continues to lead the way in terms of user numbers. As of February 2025, the social network had over ***** billion global users. YouTube, Instagram, and WhatsApp follow, but none of these well-known brands can surpass Facebook’s audience size. Moreover, as of the final quarter of 2023, there were almost **** billion Meta product users. Ever-evolving social media usage The utilization of social media remains largely gratuitous; however, companies have been encouraging users to become paid subscribers to reduce dependence on advertising profits. Meta Verified entices users by offering a blue verification badge and proactive account protection, among other things. X (formerly Twitter), Snapchat, and Reddit also offer users the chance to upgrade their social media accounts for a monthly free.

In 2022, Whatsapp was the leading social media platform among internet users in the UAE, with **** million users. The total number of active social media users in the country for that year was around **** million.