Social media statistics: How much of your life is spent on social media? | | Social Media Stories

The narrator

The average user spends about 2 hours and 39 minutes on TV every day, adding up to more than 40 days a year. How is social media similar?

Every year on June 30, people around the world commemorate Social Media Day, a day established by the digital-media website Mashable in 2010 to recognize the growth of these platforms in global communication.

Now, 16 years later, social media is no longer social media. It is an important part of daily life for more than two-thirds of the world’s people.

According to DataReportal Digital 2026 Global Overview Reportthe number of social media users has reached 5.66 billion – which is more than 68 percent of the world’s population.

The number of social media users has grown steadily from 500 million in 2005 to 2.27 billion in 2015 and 5.66 billion in 2025, largely due to the spread of affordable cell phones and the expansion of the Internet.

In the box below, enter the amount of time you spend on each social media app per day. We’ll add it up for the week, month, year and decade, then display it for a lifetime.

According to DataReportal, the average user spends 18 hours and 36 minutes a week on TV, or an average of 2 hours and 39 minutes every day. Combined for one year, that adds up to more than 40 full days spent on these platforms.

The use of social networks in the world is accepted by the majority of people, about 68 percent, especially in Europe and North America.

At 88.1 percent, East Asia has the highest percentage of TV users compared to the total population, followed by 79 percent in Northern Europe, 77.7 percent in Western Europe and 74 percent in North America.

In contrast, Central Africa has the lowest number of movie users at 12.1 percent, followed by East Africa at 12.6 percent and West Africa at 19 percent, according to DataReportal.

What is the most used place in the world?

Data from Statesman developed in partnership with Kepios is the most popular social media site in the world by monthly users. As of October, the most popular platforms were:

• Facebook leads all platforms with 3.07 billion monthly users. Reels is now the default format for all videos on the platform.
• Instagram (acquired by Facebook in 2012) and WhatsApp (found in 2014) each have 3 billion monthly users.
• YouTubewhich is owned by Google, comes next with 2.58 billion monthly users.
• TikToklaunched worldwide in 2017, it has approximately 1.99 billion users although estimates vary from source to source.

Behind these statistics is a growing concern. The European Parliament has supported the proposal of a minimum age of 16 to be able to use social media together with a ban on addictive content, such as unlimited scrolling and gaming for young users. There is no European Union-wide law in force yet, but several member states have gone ahead on their own.

Change has been partially driven by Australiawhich in December became the first country in the world to implement a law prohibiting the use of the Internet by children under the age of 16.

Other countries have followed suit. Indonesia banned social media for children under 16 in March, becoming the first country in Asia to do so. Brazil’s Digital Statute of Children and Adolescents, which went into effect that month, requires people under the age of 16 to link accounts with a legal guardian and bans some addictive features, such as unlimited scrolling. Turkey passed a law in April banning the use of television by children under the age of 15.

In June, the United Kingdom government announced plans to ban children under the age of 16 from accessing social media with restrictions expected to come into effect by the end of 2027.