Humanity Will Spend 500 Million Years on Social Media in 2024!

In this article, which you will find detailed below with charts, we will look in particular for answers to these questions:

• How many people around the world are online?
• How many people use mobile phones?
• What levels has social media use reached worldwide?
• What do we use social media for most?
• Which social media platforms attract the most interest?
• How much time is humanity expected to spend online and on social media in 2024?

How many people around the world are online?

According to estimates in the report, which include data for January 2024, about 5.35 billion people (66%) use the internet in a world of 8.08 billion. These data show increases both in the world’s population and in the numbers of mobile phone, internet and social media users.

The number of people living without connecting to the internet was put at 2.73 billion. This means that slightly more than a third of the world’s population does not use the internet.

An estimated 5.61 billion people use mobile phones worldwide. That means 69.4% of the world’s population uses a mobile phone.

Among internet users aged 16 to 64, an estimated 98% use smartphones, a share thought to be growing by around 2% a year.

Overall, while a slight increase is seen in the average daily time spent online across different devices and media, television viewing and time spent on social media are estimated to have declined.

The most striking decline, at 22.2%, is in the time spent reading online and printed news publications.

What Is Most Time Online Spent On?

Most of the time spent online is estimated to be used for researching information on a topic, staying in touch with friends and family, or watching content produced online.

Although the websites visited differ by age group, we see that social networks or chat and messaging sites take the top two places in all age groups, followed by search engines.

Social Media Usage Rates

According to the data of the Global Digital Report, there are 5.04 billion active social media user identities, equivalent to 62.3% of the world’s population. This means that a new threshold in social media use was passed as of January 2024.

Overall, while the number of social media users rose by 5.6% compared with last year, the average daily time spent on social media is estimated to have fallen by around 5.5%.

84.2% of social media users are 18 or older, and men make up a larger share of users at 53.5%. Although men outnumber women among users, the report notes the interesting statistic that women spend more time on social media each day than men in every age group.

How Much of Our Time Online Is Spent on Social Media?

The average daily time spent online worldwide is 6 hours 40 minutes. For Turkey the figure is estimated at 6 hours 57 minutes a day.

The average daily time spent on social media worldwide is 2 hours 23 minutes, more than a third of daily internet use. In Turkey, daily time spent on social media is estimated at 2 hours 44 minutes.

Although the statistics show time spent on social media falling by about 8 minutes compared with the previous year, it is stressed that this stems from a change in the research firm’s methodology rather than a real change in user behaviour.

What Is Social Media Used for Most?

Social media platforms are used most for keeping in touch with family or friends, while filling spare time and reading news stand out as the other main reasons for use.

What Are the Most Used Social Media Platforms Worldwide?

Among social media users aged 16–64 worldwide, Instagram tops the list of favourite social media platforms. WhatsApp and Facebook take the other places in the top three.

Looking at the percentage of daily use among Android users between 1 July and 30 September, WhatsApp is far ahead. Although it falls behind in comparisons of time spent, because it is used mainly for communication, WhatsApp’s clear lead over other social media platforms in measures such as usage share and frequency is striking.

Looking at average monthly time spent over the same period, we see TikTok in first place with 34 hours, followed by YouTube.

To sum up:

We have entered a period in which the number of social media users has passed the 5 billion mark.
The time we spend online keeps increasing.
Instagram overtook WhatsApp to take first place in the list of favourite social media platforms.
Online television viewing declined.
Humanity is expected to spend 1.5 billion years online in 2024, and 500 million years of that on social media.