Social media’s ‘population’ breaks through 5 billion mark

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 on Wednesday.

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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 trailed by TikTok at 1.56 billion.

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The report warns that precise numbers are hard to come by because of automated accounts or people using different indentities.

The most searched entry on Wikipedia was “ChatGPT”, the IA language model developed by OpenAI, underscoring the exploding interest in artificial intelligence.

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

By Garrin Lambley © Agence France-Presse

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