Social Media Usage Statistics, Metrics, Facts, and Analytics

CHAPTER 1

The First Social Network

The first social networking resource, the American portal Classmates.com, was launched in 1995.

According to various studies, more than 50% of the world's population in general and 95% of today's youth in particular cannot imagine their life without communication in social networks. These web resources have firmly taken their niche in the daily lives of billions of people, easily and quickly satisfying the most natural social need of any sentient being - the need to communicate. But what was the very first social network in the world?

There are two opinions about what kind of web project we should consider to be the first social network. Supporters of both versions are right in their own way because both of these sites are, to some extent, prototypes of modern social networks.

And the first version says that the very first social networking resource is the American portal Classmates.com. The project was launched in 1995 by Randy Conrads and gave everyone the opportunity to find their classmates, and coworkers.

Nevertheless, Classmates cannot be considered the first social network in the modern sense because originally, the site did not provide the possibility of creating personal profiles but simply gave access to the lists of those who studied at a certain educational institution.

Proponents of the second version assume that the first social network in the modern sense is SixDegrees.com, created by Andrew Weinreich in 1997. This project initially provided users with the opportunity to both create personal profiles and lists of their friends. Later, in 1998, the project team implemented a search function by pages, which made it much easier to find old acquaintances and add new ones.

Unfortunately, SixDegrees.com did not survive to this day and was closed in 2001. According to its creator, the capabilities of this social network were far ahead of their time because, at that time, too few Americans had more or less stable access to the Internet.

However, Classmates.com still exists and unites more than 50 million users from the United States, Canada, France, Sweden, Germany, and Austria.

CHAPTER 2

Key Internet Statistics in 2021

There are now 4.20 billion social media users worldwide.

Here are the key statistics and trends for the Digital 2021 report:

Global population: As of early 2021, the world population was 7.83 billion. According to the UN, that number is now growing at a rate of 1% per year. This means that the global population has increased by more than 80 million people since the beginning of 2020.
Mobile devices: Today, 5.22 billion people - 66.6% of the world's population - use a cell phone. Since January 2020, the number of unique mobile users has increased by 1.8% (93 million), while the total number of mobile connections increased by 72 million (0.9%) to 8.02 billion by the beginning of 2021.
Internet: In January 2021, 4.66 billion people worldwide use the Internet. This figure increased by 316 million (7.3%) over the previous year. Internet penetration now stands at 59.5%. However, COVID-19 significantly influenced the collection of data on the number of Internet users, so the actual figures may be higher.
Social Media: There are now 4.20 billion social media users worldwide. In the last 12 months, this figure has grown by 490 million, which is an increase of more than 13% year on year. Social media is used by 53.6% of the world's population in 2021.

CHAPTER 3

Social Networking Audience Statistics

The number of users of social networks increased by more than 13% over the past year.

The number of social network users has increased by more than 13% in the last year. By the beginning of 2021, almost half a billion new users had registered on social networks. On average, more than 1.3 million new accounts were created every day, which is approximately 15.5 new users per second.

The main statistic regarding social media usage is shown below:

Total users: 4,20 B;
Percentage of world population who use social media: 53.6%;
Percentage of new users: 13.2%;
Number of new users: 490 M;
Users who use social networks via phone: 4.15 B;
Percentage of users who use social networks via phone: 98.8%.

Increase in the Number of Users of Social Networks

According to data presented in the annual Digital 2021 report, the growth of social media users from 2016 to 2021 was:

2,31B

2016

2,79 B

2017

3,20 B

2018

3,46 B

2019

3,71B

2020

4,20 B

2021

The Number of Active Users of Social Networks: by Region

If we relate the number of active users to the total population of these regions, we get these figures:

Northern Europe

79%

Western Europe

79%

Northern America

74%

Southern America

72%

Southern Europe

72%

Central America

71%

South-Eastern Asia

69%

Eastern Asia

66%

Eastern Europe

65%

Oceania

64%

Western Asia

60%

Caribbean

51%

Northern Africa

45%

Southern Africa

41%

Southern Asia

31%

Western Africa

16%

Eastern Africa

10%

Middle Africa

8%

The Number of Active Users of Social Networks: by Country

If we relate the number of active users to the total population of these countries, we get the following figures:

Countries with the Highest Number of Social Media Users to the Population

99%

U.A.E.

89,3%

South Korea

88,1%

Taiwan

88%

Netherlands

86%

Malaysia

Сountries with the Lowest Number of Social Network Users to the Population

41.9%

South Africa

32,3%

India

26.1%

Ghana

20.0%

Kenya

15.8%

Nigeria

Countries with the Greatest Growth in the Number of Social Network Users

China

+12,9% (110M)

India

+21,2% (78M)

Philippines

+21,9% (16M)

Mexico

+12,4% (11M)

Brazil

+7,1% (10M)

CHAPTER 4

Social Media Users Activity

98% of social media users visit one of them at least once a month;
2 hours and 25 minutes on average are spent by users on social networks;
8.4 is the average number of social media accounts that 1 user has;
40.4% of people use social networks for work.

CHAPTER 5

Time Spent on Social Networks

The average user spends 2 hours and 25 minutes on social media every day.

The average social media user now spends 2 hours and 25 minutes each day on these platforms, which is about one day a week minus time for sleep. That could be interacting with brands, mindlessly scrolling, watching YouTube videos. Millennials spend about 2 hours and 40 minutes a day on social media. Generation Z spends 2 hours and 55 minutes. This time has been growing all the time. By comparison, in 2012, users spent an average of only 1.5 hours on social media.

It's also important to understand how their time is distributed:

Users spend an average of 4.9 minutes per each session on TikTok, averaging 8 sessions per day;
On Facebook, users spend an average of 4.7 minutes per session, and on Instagram, 3.1 minutes per session;
Snapchat users spend an average of 1.6 minutes per session online.

Daily time spent on social networking from 2012 to 2019 (in minutes)

90

2012

95

2013

104

2014

111

2015

128

2016

134

2017

142

2018

144

2019

Also, according to WeAreSocial, about 40.4% of people use social network chats to communicate with their colleagues.

The Most Active Users of Social Networks: by Time Online

4 h 15 m

Philippines

3 h 45 m

Colombia

3 h 42 m

Kenya

3 h 42 m

Brazil

3 h 41 m

Nigeria

The most Inactive Users of Social Networks: by Time Online

1 h 24 m

Germany

1 h 24 m

Netherlands

1 h 22 m

Austria

1 h 8 m

South Korea

51 m

Japan

At the same time, women of all ages, on average, spend more time on social networks than men.