Social Media

80% of the World's Population Will Use Social Media by 2028

Launched in 2004 as an experiment at Harvard, Facebook is often regarded as the defining social media platform of its era, the one that brought such platforms into the mainstream. Facebook reached one million users just ten months after its launch; it took Mark Zuckerberg's social network around eight years to reach one billion users. That milestone was reached in October 2012; by that point, many other social media platforms had become household names, including Twitter (launched in 2006) and Instagram (launched in 2010).

Just over 20 years after Facebook first took the internet by storm, social media use is almost universal. As our infographic, based on Statista Market Insights data, shows, over 5 billion people worldwide were estimated to use social media in the world in 2024, a global penetration rate of almost 71 percent. According to Statista estimates, the global penetration rate of social media should reach 82.6 percent by 2029.

In recent years, growing concerns about mental health, online safety and digital addiction have led governments worldwide to take action to limit children's access to social media. In November 2024, Australia passed the Online Safety Amendment, banning social media for users under 16, and platforms face significant fines if they don't comply. Several European countries are working on comparable bans, while similar legislation will take effect in Brazil in March 2026. According to a recent WHO survey, one in ten adolescent worldwide is considered to be a problematic social media user.

Description

This chart shows the evolution of the number of social media worldwide and the global penetration rate.

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Social media user gender distribution in Ukraine 2024, by platform
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Forecast of social media user numbers in Denmark 2020-2029
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Forecast of social media user numbers in Sweden 2020-2029
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Forecast of social media user numbers in Norway 2018-2028
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Social media user share in Kazakhstan 2025, by gender
Hong Kong's internet and social media user number 2024

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