The rise of

social media
Social media sites are used
by more than two-thirds of
Internet users. How has
social media grown over
;me?

By: Esteban Cite this

Or;z-Ospina ar;cle
September 18, Reuse our work
2019 freely

Note

This ar;cle is an archived

version of an ar;cle
published in 2019. Due to
data availability, the ar;cle
:
 and
We use cookies to give youcharts will
the best not be on our website.
experience
By agreeing, you consent to our use of cookies and other analytics tools according to our privac
updated.

Facebook, the largest social media

plaMorm in the world, had 2.4
billion users in 2019. Other social
media plaMorms, including YouTube
and WhatsApp, also had over one
billion users each.

These numbers are huge – in 2019,

there were 7.7 billion people
worldwide, with at least 3.5 billion
online. This means social media
plaMorms were used by one in
three people worldwide and more
than two-thirds of all Internet
users.

Social media has changed the

world. The rapid and vast adop;on
of these technologies is changing
how we find partners, access
informa;on from the news, and
organize to demand poli;cal
change.

Who uses social media? When did

the rise of social media start, and
how has the number of users
changed over ;me? Here we
answer these and other key
:
 answer these and other key
ques;ons to understand the history
of social media worldwide.

We begin with an outline of key

trends and conclude with a
perspec;ve on the social media
adop;on rate rela;ve to other
modern communica;on
technologies.

Social media started in

the early 2000s

MySpace was the first social media

site to reach a million monthly
ac;ve users – it achieved this
milestone around 2004. This is
arguably the beginning of social
media as we know it.¹

In the chart, we plot monthly ac;ve

users across various plaMorms since
2004.

Some large social media sites, such

as Facebook, YouTube, and Reddit,
have been around for ten or more
years, but others are much newer.

TikTok, for example, launched in

September 2016, and by mid-2018,
:
 September 2016, and by mid-2018,

it had already reached half a billion

users. To put this in perspec;ve:
TikTok gained, on average, about 20
million new users per month over
this period.

The data also shows rapid changes

in the opposite direc;on. Once-
dominant plaMorms have
disappeared. In 2008, Hi5,
MySpace, and Friendster were
close compe;tors to Facebook, yet
by 2012 they had virtually no
market share. The case of MySpace
is remarkable, considering that in
2006 it temporarily surpassed
Google as the most visited website
in the US.

Most social media plaMorms that

survived the last decade have
shi`ed significantly in what they
offer users. Twiber, for example,
didn’t allow users to upload videos
or images ini;ally. Since 2011 this
has been possible, and today, more
than 50% of the content viewed on
Twiber includes images and videos.
:
 Facebook dominated the
social media market for a
decade, but five other
platforms also have more
than half a billion users

With 2.3 billion users, Facebook

was the most popular social media
plaMorm in 2019. YouTube,
Instagram, and WeChat followed,
with over a billion users. Tumblr
and TikTok came next, with over
half a billion users.

The bar chart shows a ranking of

the top social media plaMorms.
:
 Some social media sites
are particularly popular
among specific
population groups

The aggregate numbers mask a

great deal of heterogeneity across
plaMorms. Some social media sites
are much more popular than others
among specific popula;on groups.

In general, young people are more

likely to use social media than older
people. But some plaMorms are
much more popular among younger
people. This is shown in the chart
where we plot the breakdown of
social media use by age group in
the US.

For Snapchat and Instagram, the

:
 For Snapchat and Instagram, the

‘age gradient’ is excep;onally steep

– the popularity of these plaMorms
drops much faster with age. Most
people under 25 use Snapchat
(73%), while only 3% of people over
65 use it.

Since these plaMorms are rela;vely

new, it’s hard to know how much of
this age gradient results from a
“cohort effect”. In other words: it’s
unclear whether today’s young
people will con;nue using Snapchat
as they age. If they do, the age
gradient will narrow.

Let’s now look at gender

differences.

This chart shows the percentage of

men and women that used different
:
 men and women that used different
plaMorms in the US in 2021—the

diagonal line marks parity. Sites

above the diagonal line are more
popular among women, and those
below are more popular among
men.

For some plaMorms, the gender

differences are substan;al. The
share of women who used
Pinterest was 3 ;mes as high as
that of men using this plaMorm. For
Reddit, it was the other way
around: the share of men was twice
as high.

In rich countries, almost

:
 In rich countries, almost
all young people use
social media

From a back-of-the-envelope
calcula;on, we know that if
Facebook had 2.3 billion users in
2019, then at least 30% of the
world was using social media.² This
is just an average – usage rates
were much higher for some world
regions, specifically for some
popula;on groups.

Young people tend to use social

media more frequently. In fact, in
rich countries where access to the
Internet is nearly universal, the vast
majority of young adults use it.

Our chart shows the propor;on of

people aged 16 to 24 who used
social networks across various
countries. As we can see, the
average for the OECD is close to
90%.

If today’s young adults con;nue

using social media throughout their
lives, then it’s likely that social
media will con;nue growing rapidly
as Internet adop;on expands
throughout lower-income
:
 throughout lower-income
countries.

The rise of social media

in rich countries has
come together with an
increase in the amount of
time spent online

The increase in social media use

over the last decade has, of course,
come together with a large increase
in the amount of ;me people spend
online.

In the US, adults spend more than 6

hours daily on digital media (apps
and websites accessed through
mobile phones, tablets, computers,
:
 mobile phones, tablets, computers,
and other connected devices such

as game consoles). As the chart

shows, this growth has been driven
almost en;rely by addi;onal ;me
spent on smartphones and tablets.³

According to a survey from the Pew

Research Center, adults aged 18 to
29 in the US are more likely to get
news indirectly via social media
than directly from print newspapers
or news sites. They also report
being online “almost constantly”.⁴

Evidence shows that in other rich

countries, people also spend many
hours per day online. The following
chart shows how many hours
young people spend online across
:
 young people spend online across
various rich countries. As we can
see, the average for the OECD is

more than 4 hours per day; in some

countries, the average is above 6
hours per day.

Some perspective on how

fast and profound these
rapid changes are

The percentage of US adults who

use social media increased from 5%
in 2005 to 79% in 2019. Even on a
global stage, the speed of diffusion
is striking: Facebook surged from
covering around 1.5% of the world
:
 covering around 1.5% of the world
popula;on in 2008 to around 30%
in 2018.⁵

How does this compare to the

diffusion of other communica;on
technologies in today's everyday
life?

The following chart provides some

perspec;ve.

Social media’s growth in the US is

comparable – in speed and, to
some extent, reach – to most
modern communica;on-enabling
technologies, including computers,
smartphones, and the Internet.

The rise of social media is an

extraordinary example of how
quickly and dras;cally social
behaviors can change: Something
that is today part of the everyday
life of one-third of the world
popula;on was unthinkable less
than a genera;on ago.

Rapid changes like those brought

about by social media always spark
fears about possible nega;ve
effects. Specifically, in the context
of social media, a key ques;on is
whether these new communica;on
:
 technologies are harming our
mental health – this is an important
ques;on and we cover the

evidence in another ar;cle on Our

World in Data.

ENDNOTES

1. There were, of course, earlier, much smaller predecessors

of social networking websites. The first recognizable
social media site, in the format we know today, was Six
Degrees – a platform created in 1997 that enabled users
to upload a profile and make friends with other users. At
the core, the features that define a social media platform
are (i) profiles for users, (ii) the ability for users to upload
content constantly, and (iii) the ability for users to discuss
content and connect with other users.
:
 content and connect with other users.

2. To be precise, Facebook had 2.3 billion ‘active users.’

There may be some discrepancies between the number of
‘active users’ and the number of people since one person
could, in theory, maintain multiple accounts. In practice,
these discrepancies are likely small because most social
media platforms, including Facebook, have policies and
checks to avoid multiple accounts per person.

3. Digital media contrasts with print media (including books,

newspapers, and magazines) and other traditional or
analog media (including TV, movies, and radio).

4. According to the survey from Pew Research, 36% of adults

18 to 29 in the US say they ‘often get news via social
media,’ which is higher than the share saying they ‘often
get news via other platforms,’ such as news sites, TV, radio
or print newspapers. From the same survey, we also know
that 48% of adults 18 to 29 say they go online almost
constantly, and 46% say they go online multiple times
daily.

5. The US social media adoption data is here. Regarding

Facebook’s global numbers: In 2018, Facebook had 2.26
billion users, and in 2008 it had 100 million; the world
population in 2008 was 6.8 billion, and in 2018 it was
7.63 billion (you can check the population data here.)

Cite this work

Our articles and data visualizations rely on work from many
different people and organizations. When citing this article,
please also cite the underlying data sources. This article can
be cited as:
:
 Esteban Ortiz-Ospina (2019) -
“The rise of social media”
Published online at
OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved
from:
'https://ourworldindata.org/ris
e-of-social-media' [Online
Resource]

BibTeX citation

@article{owid-rise-of-social-
media,
author = {Esteban Ortiz-
Ospina},
title = {The rise of social
media},
journal = {Our World in
Data},
year = {2019},
note =
{https://ourworldindata.org/ris
e-of-social-media}
}

Reuse this work freely

All visualizations, data, and code produced by Our World in
:
 All visualizations, data, and code produced by Our World in
Data are completely open access under the Creative
Commons BY license. You have the permission to use,
distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the
source and authors are credited.
The data produced by third parties and made available by
Our World in Data is subject to the license terms from the
original third-party authors. We will always indicate the
original source of the data in our documentation, so you
should always check the license of any such third-party data
before use and redistribution.

All of our charts can be embedded in any site.

Our World in Data is free and accessible

for everyone. Donate
Help us do this work by making a now
donation.
:
 About Latest work Licenses: All visualizations,
Contact All charts data, and articles produced by
Feedback Our World in Data are open
Twitter access under the Creative
Jobs
Facebook Commons BY license. You
Funding
have permission to use,
FAQs Instagram
distribute, and reproduce
Donate Threads these in any medium,
Privacy GitHub provided the source and
policy Research & authors are credited. All the
Writing RSS software and code that we
Feed write is open source and
Daily Data made available via GitHub
Insights RSS under the permissive MIT
Feed license. All other material,
including data produced by
third parties and made
available by Our World in
Data, is subject to the license
terms from the original third-
party authors.

Please consult our full legal

disclaimer.

Our World In Data

is a project of the
Global Change
Data Lab, a
registered charity in England
and Wales (Charity Number
1186433).
: