As of February 2025, India was the country with the largest YouTube audience by far, with approximately 491 million users engaging with the popular social video platform. The United States followed, with around 253 million YouTube viewers. Brazil came in third, with 144 million users watching content on YouTube. The United Kingdom saw around 54.8 million internet users engaging with the platform in the examined period. What country has the highest percentage of YouTube users? In July 2024, the United Arab Emirates was the country with the highest YouTube penetration worldwide, as around 94 percent of the country's digital population engaged with the service. In 2024, YouTube counted around 100 million paid subscribers for its YouTube Music and YouTube Premium services. YouTube mobile markets In 2024, YouTube was among the most popular social media platforms worldwide. In terms of revenues, the YouTube app generated approximately 28 million U.S. dollars in revenues in the United States in January 2024, as well as 19 million U.S. dollars in Japan.

The global number of Youtube users in was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2029 by in total ***** million users (+***** percent). After the ninth consecutive increasing year, the Youtube user base is estimated to reach *** billion users and therefore a new peak in 2029. Notably, the number of Youtube users of was continuously increasing over the past years.User figures, shown here regarding the platform youtube, 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 *** 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 Youtube users in countries like Africa and South America.

The number of Youtube users in India was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2029 by in total 222.2 million users (+34.88 percent). After the ninth consecutive increasing year, the Youtube user base is estimated to reach 859.26 million users and therefore a new peak in 2029. Notably, the number of Youtube users of was continuously increasing over the past years.User figures, shown here regarding the platform youtube, 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 Youtube users in countries like Sri Lanka and Nepal.

The number of Youtube users in Europe was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2029 by in total 7.8 million users (+3.61 percent). After the ninth consecutive increasing year, the Youtube user base is estimated to reach 223.61 million users and therefore a new peak in 2029. Notably, the number of Youtube users of was continuously increasing over the past years.User figures, shown here regarding the platform youtube, 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 Youtube users in countries like North America and Australia & Oceania.

Motivation

The rise of online media has enabled users to choose various unethical and artificial ways of gaining social growth to boost their credibility (number of followers/retweets/views/likes/subscriptions) within a short time period. In this work, we present ABOME, a novel data repository consisting of datasets collected from multiple platforms for the analysis of blackmarket-driven collusive activities, which are prevalent but often unnoticed in online media. ABOME contains data related to tweets and users on Twitter, YouTube videos, YouTube channels. We believe ABOME is a unique data repository that one can leverage to identify and analyze blackmarket based temporal fraudulent activities in online media as well as the network dynamics.

License

Creative Commons License.

Description of the dataset

- Historical Data

We collected the metadata of each entity present in the historical data

Twitter:

We collected the following fields for retweets and followers on Twitter:

user_details: A JSON object representing a Twitter user.

tweet_details: A JSON object representing a tweet.

tweet_retweets: A JSON list of tweet objects representing the most recent 100 retweets of a given tweet.

1. https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/tweets/data-dictionary/overview/user-object↩︎

2. https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/tweets/data-dictionary/overview/tweet-object↩︎

YouTube:

We collected the following fields for YouTube likes and comments:

is_family_friendly: Whether the video is marked as family friendly or not.

genre: Genre of the video.

duration: Duration of the video in ISO 8601 format (duration type). This format is generally used when the duration denotes the amount of intervening time in a time interval.

description: Description of the video.

upload_date: Date that the video was uploaded.

is_paid: Whether the video is paid or not.

is_unlisted: The privacy status of the video, i.e., whether the video is unlisted or not. Here, the flag unlisted indicates that the video can only be accessed by people who have a direct link to it.

statistics: A JSON object containing the number of dislikes, views and likes for the video.

comments: A list of comments for the video. Each element in the list is a JSON object of the text (the comment text) and time (the time when the comment was posted).

We collected the following fields for YouTube channels:

channel_description: Description of the channel.

hidden_subscriber_count: Total number of hidden subscribers of the channel.

published_at: Time when the channel was created. The time is specified in ISO 8601 format (YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.sZ).

video_count: Total number of videos uploaded to the channel.

subscriber_count: Total number of subscribers of the channel.

view_count: The number of times the channel has been viewed.

kind: The API resource type (e.g., youtube#channel for YouTube channels).

country: The country the channel is associated with.

comment_count: Total number of comments the channel has received.

etag: The ETag of the channel which is an HTTP header used for web browser cache validation.

The historical data is stored in five directories named according to the type of data inside it. Each directory contains json files corresponding to the data described above.

- Time-series Data

We collect the following time-series data for retweets and followers on Twitter:

user_timeline: This is a JSON list of tweet objects in the user’s timeline, which consists of the tweets posted, retweeted and quoted by the user. The file created at each time interval contains the new tweets posted by the user during each time interval.

user_followers: This is a JSON file containing the user ids of all the followers of a user that were added or removed from the follower list during each time interval.

user_followees: This is a JSON file consisting of the user ids of all the users followed by a user, i.e., the followees of a user, that were added or removed from the followee list during each time interval.

tweet_details: This is a JSON object representing a given tweet, collected after every time interval.

tweet_retweets: This is a JSON list of tweet objects representing the most recent 100 retweets of a given tweet, collected after every time interval.

The time-series data is stored in directories named according to the timestamp of the collection time. Each directory contains sub-directories corresponding to the data described above.

Data Anonymization

The data is anonymized by removing all Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and generating pseud-IDs corresponding to the original IDs. A consistent mapping between the original and pseudo-IDs is maintained to maintain the integrity of the data.

Description of the Dataset and Research Context

This dataset was generated for a systematic review that investigated the positive and negative impacts of social media use on learning in higher education. The research hypothesized that the educational use of social media platforms can produce both beneficial and adverse effects on student engagement, academic performance, and cognitive development, depending on the platform type, pedagogical goals, and disciplinary context.

Data Collection Process

Data were gathered from peer-reviewed empirical studies published between 2011 and 2025. A systematic search was conducted in four databases: PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and ERIC. Eligible studies included those using qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-method approaches, focusing on social media use in higher education contexts. Only studies published in English or Spanish were included. The selection process followed PRISMA 2020 guidelines and was managed using the Rayyan platform. Calibration between two independent reviewers was carried out, and inter-rater agreement was measured using Cohen’s Kappa.

A standardized Excel spreadsheet was used to extract and structure the data, which included bibliographic details, study characteristics, country, academic field, education level, social media platforms used, educational purposes, and reported outcomes (positive or negative). Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected.

Key Findings

The data revealed that Instagram, WhatsApp, and YouTube were the most frequently used platforms. Positive outcomes often included increased student engagement, collaborative learning, and knowledge sharing. However, negative outcomes such as distraction, reduced academic focus, and information overload were also recurrent. Studies represented 38 countries, with Latin America, Europe, and Asia being the most represented regions.

A mixed-methods synthesis was performed. Quantitative patterns were analyzed using descriptive statistics in RStudio (version 2025.05.0), while qualitative data were inductively coded and grouped into thematic categories related to educational outcomes and social media use patterns.

Interpretation and Use

This dataset provides structured empirical evidence on how social media impacts university-level learning environments. It can be used by researchers conducting further meta-analyses, education policymakers exploring digital integration, and educators aiming to make informed decisions about platform use. All data were independently verified by two reviewers. The full dataset and codebook are included in the repository to support reproducibility and secondary analysis.

Which county has the most Facebook users?

              There are more than 378 million Facebook users in India alone, making it the leading country in terms of Facebook audience size. To put this into context, if India’s Facebook audience were a country then it would be ranked third in terms of largest population worldwide. Apart from India, there are several other markets with more than 100 million Facebook users each: The United States, Indonesia, and Brazil with 193.8 million, 119.05 million, and 112.55 million Facebook users respectively.

              Facebook – the most used social media

              Meta, the company that was previously called Facebook, owns four of the most popular social media platforms worldwide, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Facebook, and Instagram. As of the third quarter of 2021, there were around 3,5 billion cumulative monthly users of the company’s products worldwide. With around 2.9 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most popular social media worldwide. With an audience of this scale, it is no surprise that the vast majority of Facebook’s revenue is generated through advertising.

              Facebook usage by device
              As of July 2021, it was found that 98.5 percent of active users accessed their Facebook account from mobile devices. In fact, almost 81.8 percent of Facebook audiences worldwide access the platform only via mobile phone. Facebook is not only available through mobile browser as the company has published several mobile apps for users to access their products and services. As of the third quarter 2021, the four core Meta products were leading the ranking of most downloaded mobile apps worldwide, with WhatsApp amassing approximately six billion downloads.

As of April 2024, Bahrain was the country with the highest Instagram audience reach with 95.6 percent. Kazakhstan also had a high Instagram audience penetration rate, with 90.8 percent of the population using the social network. In the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Brunei, the photo-sharing platform was used by more than 85 percent of each country's population.

In 2021, YouTube's user base in Vietnam amounts to approximately ***** million users. The number of YouTube users in Vietnam is projected to reach ***** million users by 2025. User figures 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 *** 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).

This statistic shows a ranking of the estimated number of Youtube users in 2020 in Africa, differentiated by country. The user numbers 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 more than 150 countries and regions worldwide. All input data are sourced from international institutions, national statistical offices, and trade associations. All data has been are processed to generate comparable datasets (see supplementary notes under details for more information).

As of April 2024, Facebook had an addressable ad audience reach 131.1 percent in Libya, followed by the United Arab Emirates with 120.5 percent and Mongolia with 116 percent. Additionally, the Philippines and Qatar had addressable ad audiences of 114.5 percent and 111.7 percent.

The number of Youtube users in Africa was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2029 by in total 0.03 million users (+3.95 percent). The Youtube user base is estimated to amount to 0.79 million users in 2029. User figures, shown here regarding the platform youtube, 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 Youtube users in countries like Worldwide and the Americas.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This statistic shows a ranking of the estimated number of Facebook users in 2020 in Africa, differentiated by country. The user numbers 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.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 more than 150 countries and regions worldwide. All input data are sourced from international institutions, national statistical offices, and trade associations. All data has been are processed to generate comparable datasets (see supplementary notes under details for more information).

The number of Reddit users in Africa was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2028 by in total 4.7 million users (+66.67 percent). After the eighth consecutive increasing year, the Reddit user base is estimated to reach 11.78 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 North America and Asia.

This statistic shows a ranking of the estimated number of Reddit users in 2020 in Africa, differentiated by country. The user numbers 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 more than 150 countries and regions worldwide. All input data are sourced from international institutions, national statistical offices, and trade associations. All data has been are processed to generate comparable datasets (see supplementary notes under details for more information).

This statistic shows a ranking of the estimated number of Whatsapp users in 2020 in Africa, differentiated by country. The user numbers 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 more than 150 countries and regions worldwide. All input data are sourced from international institutions, national statistical offices, and trade associations. All data has been are processed to generate comparable datasets (see supplementary notes under details for more information).