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.

During a 2024 survey, 77 percent of respondents from Nigeria stated that they used social media as a source of news. In comparison, just 23 percent of Japanese respondents said the same. Large portions of social media users around the world admit that they do not trust social platforms either as media sources or as a way to get news, and yet they continue to access such networks on a daily basis.

              Social media: trust and consumption

              Despite the majority of adults surveyed in each country reporting that they used social networks to keep up to date with news and current affairs, a 2018 study showed that social media is the least trusted news source in the world. Less than 35 percent of adults in Europe considered social networks to be trustworthy in this respect, yet more than 50 percent of adults in Portugal, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Croatia said that they got their news on social media.

              What is clear is that we live in an era where social media is such an enormous part of daily life that consumers will still use it in spite of their doubts or reservations. Concerns about fake news and propaganda on social media have not stopped billions of users accessing their favorite networks on a daily basis.
              Most Millennials in the United States use social media for news every day, and younger consumers in European countries are much more likely to use social networks for national political news than their older peers.
              Like it or not, reading news on social is fast becoming the norm for younger generations, and this form of news consumption will likely increase further regardless of whether consumers fully trust their chosen network or not.

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.

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.

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.

During a 2024 survey among marketers worldwide, around 86 percent reported using Facebook for marketing purposes. Instagram and LinkedIn followed, respectively mentioned by 79 and 65 percent of the respondents.

              The global social media marketing segment

              According to the same study, 59 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 2024. 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.

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

Since going mainstream over a decade ago, hundreds of millions of Americans have embraced social networking sites, including Meta, X, LinkedIn and dozens more. People use these networks to maintain relationships with friends, follow the news and share photos and videos. By leveraging user data for targeted advertisements, where most revenue is derived, sites have been able to capitalize on the popularity of their platforms. As a result, industry revenue has surged at a CAGR of 20.3% over the past five years, including a climb of 12.0% to total an estimated $104.9 billion in 2024 alone. The industry has benefited from the continual shift of advertising spending to the internet, the proliferation of internet-connected mobile devices and more powerful networks. The industry is highly concentrated, with the top three companies making up a significant portion of industry revenue in 2024. Because of its early entry into the sector, Meta (previously Facebook) alone holds most of the market in 2024. The company's high market share and tremendously strong profit have resulted in the average industry profit margin accounting for 30.1% of revenue in 2024. Despite the industry's high profit level, many smaller companies operate at a loss. Since most industry revenue is generated through advertisements, sites must have a large and active user base to successfully attract advertisers. Many websites offer free services to gain users, but it can take a significant amount of time to build up a large user base, and many companies fail to do so before running out of money. Moving forward, industry revenue growth will slow somewhat because of deaccelerated growth in the number of mobile internet connections and the percentage of services conducted online, both of which are critical drivers for social networking sites. Nonetheless, the industry will grow substantially, increasing at a CAGR of 10.7% to $230.6 billion in 2029. Despite less pronounced revenue growth, new sites will continue to enter the industry and exacerbate competition. To compete, social networking sites are poised to focus on serving niche markets and advertisers' interests.

How much time do people spend on social media?

              As of 2024, the average daily social media usage of internet users worldwide amounted to 143 minutes per day, down from 151 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 three hours and 49 minutes on social media each day. In comparison, the daily time spent with social media in
              the U.S. was just two 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.

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

Forecast: Internet Users Using the Internet for Accessing Social Networking Sites in the Last 3 Months by Business Type in Czech Republic 2022 - 2026 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

Percentage of Canadians who have experienced selected personal effects in their life because of the Internet and the use of social networking websites or apps, during the past 12 months.

During a January 2024 global survey among marketers, nearly 60 percent reported plans to increase their organic use of YouTube for marketing purposes in the following 12 months. LinkedIn and Instagram followed, respectively mentioned by 57 and 56 percent of the respondents intending to use them more. According to the same survey, Facebook was the most important social media platform for marketers worldwide.

Twitter user statistics show a varying degree of how often users login to the platform. Here’s what it looks like.

This industry includes social networking website publishers and developers. The industry does not include companies that predominantly develop blogs, games, internet content, messaging services, online dating websites, online recruitment websites, online forums and online videos.

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.

Social networking sites are profile based websites that allow users to maintain social relationships by viewing, visiting, and sharing their lists of social connections with other members. The use of social networks is a growing phenomenon, being increasingly important in both private and academic life. Social networks are used as tools to enable users to have social interaction. Social networking tools, reinforced by proliferation and advances in portable computing and wireless technologies have reshaped how information is produced, communicated, and consumed.

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

The relationship between social networking sites (SNS) and mental health is influenced by individual user characteristics, making it crucial to understand the nature of this complex interaction. Despite its importance, however, there is a lack of comprehensive reviews synthesizing prior studies on how user characteristics moderate the relationship between usage of SNS and mental health. Therefore, to examine how this issue has been studied in the literature, we conducted a scoping review, focusing on quantitative evidence, including experimental, cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experience-sampling studies. We provide an overview of (a) user characteristics that have been examined as moderators of the relationship between (overall, active, or passive) SNS use and mental health (well-being or ill-being), and (b) methodological and theoretical features of these studies. After conducting a systematic database search, followed by title and abstract screening, full-text review of relevant studies, and an interrater reliability check among three authors, we found 30 journal articles examining 24 unique moderators. We then applied a narrative synthesis approach to describe the findings. Most studies were atheoretical, cross-sectional, and relied on convenience samples. Most moderators (n = 16, 67%) were examined in a single journal article only and for those examined at least twice (gender, social comparison orientation, neuroticism, extraversion, SNS use motives, Fear of missing out, self-esteem, social capital & social support, and age), results were mixed. However, experimental studies revealed that social comparison orientation was the most consistent moderator, aggravating the negative consequences of passive SNS use on mental health. We outline four recommendations for future studies on the conditional effects of SNS use on mental health to resolve existing inconsistencies and deepen our understanding of these conditional effects: (a) improving participant sampling, (b) refining the conceptualization and measurement of key variables, (c) accounting for platform diversity, and (d) incorporating theoretical frameworks.