Origin of World Social Media Day
World Social Media Day has been celebrated on 30 June since 2010 on the initiative of Pete Cashmore from Scotland, founder of the influential news and technology portal Mashable.
The need to commemorate a day dedicated to social media arose due to the relevance that some of the most important social media reached a few years after their birth, from different perspectives, such as work, information or mere entertainment.
This importance has continued to grow since Social Networking Day was first commemorated 14 years ago. To observe this relevance, we are going to analyse the use of social networks in 2024 from different perspectives, such as the total number of users, the differences between some networks and others, and the time of use of the different networks.
RRSS users in 2024
To get an idea of the importance of social networks in today’s world, some interesting data from the Digital 2024 report suffice.
In 2024 there will be 5,000 million social network users (out of a population of slightly more than 8,000 million), 266 million more than the previous year, according to data from the same study, which represents a percentage increase of 5.6%.
In terms of the total percentage of the world’s population, 62.3% are users of social media, a figure that rises to 84.2% if we consider only the population over the age of 18.
In terms of the average time spent on social media, we are looking at two hours and 23 minutes a day for the total time spent on the different platforms, which is less than the two hours and 31 minutes in 2023, a decrease of 5.5%.
Reasons for using social networks in 2024
According to the data from this same study, we find the main reasons why people spend time on social networks, although they are not mutually exclusive.
49.5% of users say they do it to keep in touch with family and friends, 38.5% to fill their free time and 34.2% to read new stories.
The other four reasons above 25% are to find content such as articles or videos of interest to them (30.2%), to see what people are talking about (28.7%), to find inspiration for things to do and buy (26.7%) and to look for products to buy (26.1%).
Most used social networks in 2024
If we differentiate the use of social networks, we find that Facebook continues to lead the ranking with more than 3 billion users, followed by YouTube and WhatsApp with 2.5 billion and 2 billion respectively.
The top five are completed by Instagram (2 billion) and TikTok, which has experienced a 50% increase in new users since 2023 to reach almost 1.6 billion users.
Favourite social networks in 2024
Curiously, the data on the most used social networks does not correspond to the data on which are the users’ favourites.
In this case, we find that Instagram is in first place with 16.5% of preferences, closely followed by WhatsApp (16.1%). The podium is completed by another Meta social network, Facebook, with 12.8%, the same score as Wechat. Fifth place goes to TikTok with 7.4%.
The equality observed in these data is altered if we distinguish by age group: in the 16 to 24 and 25 to 34 age groups, Instagram is clearly the favourite social network, while for those aged 35 and over, WhatsApp is the favourite, with a difference that increases as the users’ age increases.
Time spent on social media apps
In terms of time spent on social networking apps, TikTok ranks first with 34 hours of use per week, ahead of YouTube’s 28 hours and 5 minutes.
Behind are the three Meta networks: Facebook with 19 hours and 47 minutes, WhatsApp Messenger with 17 hours and 6 minutes and Instagram with 15 hours and 50 minutes.
However, if the variable we take into account is access and daily use, here WhatsApp dominates with 83.2%. Behind, and very close behind, we find Facebook (64.1%), YouTube (63.7%), Line (62.9%), TikTok (61.7%) and Instagram (61.6%).
Duration of each social media session
Another interesting fact to take into account is the duration of each session. In this case, the winner is YouTube with 7 minutes and 25 seconds, ahead of TikTok’s 5 minutes and 56 seconds.
Behind are Facebook (with 3 minutes and 42 seconds) and Instagram (2 minutes and 44), followed by Pinterest and X (formerly Twitter) with the same time: 2 minutes and 11 seconds.
