More than 60% of the world now uses social media

According to recent research, about five billion individuals, or slightly more than 60% of the world’s population, use social media. According to projections in the most recent quarterly report from digital consultancy firm Kepios, that indicates a rise of 3.7% over the previous year. The number of people using social networks is getting close to the 5.19 billion people who use the internet, or 64.5% of the world’s population.

There are significant variations between regions, however. In East and Central Africa, only 1 out of 11 people uses social media whereas this figure for India is 1 in 3 people. The average amount spent on social media per day also increased by 2 minutes as people now spend 2 hours and 26 minutes on an average daily on various social media platforms.

The average social media user is on seven different social media apps with Meta’s Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram being the favorites. WeChat, TikTok and the local version of TikTok, Douyin along with Twitter, Telegram, and Messenger complete the list of top social media platforms.

The results of this research come bearing zero surprises as the usage of social media has seen an exponential rise over the last few years. Since 2020, the number of social media users in the world has increased by more than 1.5 billion and the duration an average person spent on social media per day before the pandemic was a mere 56 minutes out of 24 hours, which has more than doubled now within 3 years.

Apps like TikTok and Instagram, attract users to consume their content, which is perfectly tailored as each clip is 15-30 seconds long, users invest hours of time to watch the clips without even realising that they are getting addicted. This loop of content is one of the few reasons why we have been seeing an exponential rise in the number of users, and time spent daily on various social media platforms.