There are now 5 billion active social media users, about 62% of humanity - New Study reveals

Wednesday, January 31, 2024 – The number of active social media users has risen to more than 5 billion, or about 62.3 percent of humanity, according to a study published Wednesday, January 31.

The number rose 5.6 percent last year, outpacing the 0.9 percent increase in the world’s population, said the report by media monitoring company Meltwater and social media agency We Are Social.

The social network with the most users was Meta’s Facebook with 2.19 billion. Meta’s Instagram was next with 1.65 billion, narrowly followed by TikTok at 1.56 billion.

The report was based on figures compiled by digital consultancy company Kepios

The report added that the numbers weren't accurate as there are automated accounts or people using different identities.

The most searched entry on Wikipedia was “ChatGPT”, the IA language model developed by OpenAI.