Social media users account for more than 58% of the world's population

Social networks continue to grow in importance within the digital universe. So much so that the number of social media users now equates to more than 58% of the world's total population. The data comes from Digital 2022, the latest report by We Are Social and Hootsuite.

There are currently 4.620 million network users worldwide, representing a year-on-year growth of more than 10% (424 million new users) since last year. Along with the increase in profiles also came the increase in the time spent in these environments.

People say they spend more time on social channels each day than in the previous year: the average is 2 hours and 27 minutes. Facebook is still the most used social platform in the world, however, YouTube is closing the gap rapidly, with its audience increasing twice as fast as that of the Meta site.

Google's video platform has 2.56 billion active users, which is equivalent to 88% of the last total spread by the social network created by Mark Zuckerberg. The third most used service is WhatsApp, followed by Instagram, whose audience increased by more than 6% (85 million users) in the last 90 days alone.

Tik Tok, one of the spaces that grew most in relevance during the pandemic, is not far behind either: it registered an increase of 7.3% (60 million users) during the same period.

“At a time when social distance regulations and non-essential business closures affect businesses everywhere, social commerce is often one of the only ways brands stay open and connected with consumers,” Maggie Lower, CMO of Hootsuite, stressed in the report.

Another highlight is the presence of internet users: in January 2022 about 62.5% of the world's population was online, which represents a 4% jump compared to the previous year.

Contrary to popular belief, more and more people are willing to pay for digital content. In this regard, more than 7 out of 10 internet users of working age (71.5%) say they pay for some type of content every month. The world's Internet users spent nearly $300 billion on digital material in 2021. More than half of those expenses were made in the video games category.

This is consistent with another aspect mentioned in the report: gaming grew rapidly in the last year. The daily time spent using a game console increased to 1 hour and 12 minutes. Meanwhile, more than 8 out of 10 internet users between the ages of 16 and 64 say they play video games on any device worldwide.

In turn, e-commerce continues its upward trend, driven in part by the recent and rapid increase in social commerce. Nearly 6 out of 10 working-age Internet users (58.4%) now buy things online, every week.

Another point to note is that the number of people holding cryptocurrencies has increased by more than a third (37.8%) since last year. This implies that more than 1 in 10 internet users of working age now have some form of digital currency. This makes it clear how the crypto universe is no longer something niche to become more common among netizens.

“We are seeing rapid changes in culture, economy and society in general. The huge changes in behavior observed over the past 12 months are now permanent and will accelerate even faster,” said Nathan McDonald, co-founder and CEO of the We Are Social group, in the statement released.

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