Pandemic led to half a billion new users on social media

In 2020, a year that was mostly spent in lockdown for most parts of the world, social media users increased at the quickest rate in three years to 4.2 billion active users worldwide by the start of 2021.

On average, more than 1.3 million new users joined social media every day during 2020, equating to roughly 15½ new users every single second, according to Digital Report 2021.

The report presents a global overview on the latest insights into how people around the world use the internet including social media, mobile devices, and e-commerce.

A key trend displayed in the report shows news consumption across social media platforms as the top reason people use social media, to stay updated on what is going on in the world.

An interesting point to note is that most of the top reasons are all related to “passive networking”, which reveals that users utilise social media to ‘consume content rather than actively contributing to the stories’.

This trend on using social media as a source for news consumption or entertainment suggests how behaviors are continuing to change.