More people are accessing the news via social media, according to the 2022 Digital News Report. It comes as it was revealed that half of adults get their news from social media, instead of traditional news outlets, with Facebook being the most popular platform for accessing news stories. But with over 4 billion social media users across the world, each with an average of seven social media accounts, this is just the beginning when it comes to social media usage trends.
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Endless scrolling
The average person spends over 140 minutes on social media every day, with The Guardian revealing that 60 billion messages are sent through Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp each and every day. Even more interesting is that a new social media account is created every six seconds.
Instagram issues
Nearly half of Instagram users have experienced harassment, making it the most common platform for cyberbullying. There are a few things you can do to protect yourself online, though, which are outlined in ExpressVPN’s privacy infographic. This includes requiring approvals for tags, removing metadata and geolocation data from posts, limiting certain posts to close friends only, and not tagging a place until after you’ve left.
Beneficial impact
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It cannot be denied that the internet and social media have provided us with a few benefits. From making communication easier to keeping us up to date with friends and family all over the world. One study even found that over 80% of teenagers say social media has positively affected their lives, according to Pew Research Center.
Facebook fans
Personalization says Facebook leads the way in terms of our favorite social media platform, with around 60% of internet users having a profile. It accounts for just over 20% of all internet traffic and share buttons are found on nearly 10 million websites every day. That’s not all either as most Facebook users are under the age of 35 and nearly 75% check their accounts daily.
Video views
Think about video content and you probably think about YouTube. Plus, if you do, you’re not alone. In fact, two billion people visit YouTube every day and 60% actually prefer to watch videos on there compared to any other platform. Incredibly, over 500 hours of videos are uploaded to YouTube every single minute!
Business giants
Eight out of 10 businesses use at least one kind of social media platform and 90% of retailers actually have two or more social media channels. The majority of small and medium-sized companies actually offer customer service via Twitter and it’s a good reason they do as over 80% of consumers say that they have more positive feelings and trust towards a business if they receive a reply to their tweet.
It’s not just businesses using Twitter though as there are more than 1 billion Twitter accounts and 500 million access Twitter without logging in. This backs up the importance of being careful over what you post and share online.
With more social media users every day, it seems our online community will only get bigger. And, with the emergence of platforms like TikTok and Discord, who knows where it’ll be going next?
