Global Social Media Snapshot: Facebook Remains Dominant, TikTok Surges and Digital Divides Deepen, Pew Research Center Finds Across 37 Countries
A comprehensive new report from Pew Research Center, drawing on interviews with more than 47,000 adults across 37 countries, paints a complex portrait of global social media use, revealing that Facebook remains the most widely adopted platform among five measured, while TikTok is rapidly gaining ground in middle-income nations and X, formerly Twitter, is stagnating or declining in much of the world. The study, titled “Across the Globe, People Increasingly Say Social Media Is Harming Democracy,” is part of a broader effort to understand how social media and emerging technologies like artificial intelligence are affecting democratic life. It is based on Spring 2026 Global Attitudes Surveys in 36 countries and the United States, encompassing 42,151 respondents in places as varied as Argentina, Ghana, Indonesia, Poland, and the West Bank and East Jerusalem. U.S. data came from two separate surveys of American adults, including 3,507 members of the Center’s American Trends Panel and 5,511 respondents to the National Public Opinion Reference Survey, with international interviews conducted from Feb. 8 to May 13, 2026 and U.S. fieldwork extending to June 18, 2026. The report asks a straightforward question: who uses Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, and Snapchat, and how is that usage changing? Across the 37 countries studied, the median share of adults using Facebook is 69%, making it by far the most common platform, followed by Instagram at 51%, TikTok at 40%, X at 18%, and Snapchat at 18%. These overall figures, however, mask striking regional, demographic and economic differences that define the digital landscape.
Facebook’s dominance is not uniform. In more than half of the countries surveyed, the share of adults who say they use Facebook is significantly higher than the share using the second-most-popular platform, underscoring its enduring role as the internet’s default social connector. In some high-income nations in Europe and the Asia-Pacific, however, Instagram equals or surpasses Facebook in popularity, particularly among younger and more urban populations. For example, while Facebook remains strong in places like the Philippines, Colombia, and Kenya, Instagram has become equally or more popular in parts of Western Europe and developed Asia, reflecting a generational and aesthetic shift toward visual and video-centric platforms. TikTok, meanwhile, has emerged as a top-tier platform in several middle-income Asian and African countries, where it has carved out a massive youth audience. Notably, TikTok has been banned in India since 2020, so its usage there could not be measured, but in countries from Nigeria to Indonesia, TikTok use has exploded. X, formerly Twitter, and Snapchat generally trail far behind, yet there are notable exceptions: about half of Japanese adults report using X, a legacy of the platform’s early dominance in that market, and a similar share of Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem report using Snapchat, demonstrating how local communication needs and network effects can elevate even secondary platforms. These patterns suggest that social media ecosystems are increasingly fragmented, with global platforms adapting to local cultural and economic contexts rather than replacing one another wholesale.
The report also offers the first global trend comparisons for these platforms since 2023, when Pew Research Center surveyed eight middle-income countries: Argentina, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria and South Africa. In that earlier round, researchers asked about a slightly different set of platforms, including WhatsApp and Telegram, but not Snapchat. This year, with Snapchat added and the messaging apps dropped, the change in usage of the comparable platforms is striking. TikTok use has increased by double digits in almost every country where trend data exist, making it the fastest-growing platform in the study. In Nigeria, the share of TikTok users has more than doubled, soaring from 25% in 2023 to 57% today. Similar surges occurred in Indonesia, Argentina, South Africa, Mexico, Kenya, with increases of 20 to 33 percentage points over the three-year period. Instagram use has also climbed in six of the eight countries, with particularly sharp gains: Nigeria saw a 17-point jump, Argentina 15 points, Indonesia 14 points, and India 12 points, suggesting that short-form visual content is not just a youth fad but a mainstream communication mode across the Global South. Facebook, despite its maturity, has also grown in several of these countries, including Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and South Africa, likely driven by increased internet access and older users coming online. X, however, presents a striking contrast: in most of the countries with trend data, use of the platform stayed flat or declined. In Brazil, X use collapsed from 22% in 2023 to just 7% in 2026, a fall that may reflect changes in the platform’s management, moderation policies, and competition from other platforms. But in Indonesia and Nigeria, X use actually grew, showing that even a stagnating global platform can expand in specific markets with growing digital populations and particular political or social dynamics. These shifts reveal a platform landscape in constant motion, where user acquisition is not inevitable and where local conditions heavily shape global tech trajectories.
Demographic patterns in social media use are among the most consistent findings across the 37 countries. Broadly, younger people and those with more education are more likely to use each of the platforms surveyed, but the size and direction of these gaps vary considerably by platform and by country’s income level. Age is a powerful divider: the median share of adults ages 18 to 34 who use Facebook is 78%, compared with 57% among those 35 to 49 and 29% among those 50 and older. A similar gradient is steeper for Instagram, where 77% of young adults use it versus 29% of older adults, and steeper still for TikTok, with median usage of 64% among young adults versus just 9% among those 50 and older—a gap of roughly 55 percentage points in many countries. Snapchat exhibits an even more extreme age skew: in the United Kingdom, 58% of adults under 35 use Snapchat, while only 2% of those 50 and older do. This generational divide is so pronounced that in several countries Snapchat is almost exclusively a young-adult platform. Interestingly, Facebook’s age profile flips depending on national wealth. In middle-income countries like Indonesia, Thailand, Bangladesh, and Kenya, Facebook is most popular among younger adults, with three-quarters or more of those under 35 using it, and usage declines steadily with age. In high-income countries, by contrast, Facebook tends to be most popular among those ages 35 to 49, while younger adults often prefer Instagram, TikTok, or Snapchat. For instance, in Sweden,Germany, Canada, Italy, France and Singapore, adults ages 18 to 34 are no more likely—and in some cases less likely—than older adults to use Facebook; in Singapore, only 62% of young adults use Facebook versus 87% of those ages 50 and older, a remarkable inversion. Education also interacts with income in complex ways. In most middle-income countries, people with more education are significantly more likely to use every platform, including TikTok and Snapchat, reflecting disparities in digital access and literacy. But in some high-income countries, the pattern reverses for certain platforms: fewer educated Swedes, Germans, Dutch, French, and Canadians use TikTok or Snapchat than their less-educated counterparts, possibly because more educated groups have migrated to other platforms or harbor greater privacy concerns. X usage is also higher among younger, more educated, and more urban respondents in most places, mirroring its historical role as a forum for elites, journalists, and politically engaged citizens; however, its relatively small user base globally suggests that this influence is concentrated rather than broad.
Social media use is not just a matter of which apps people open; it is also a question of how many platforms they juggle. The report defines multi-platform users as those who say they use three or more of the five surveyed platforms, and it finds that about a third of adults across the 37 countries fall into this category, with a median of 36% using three or more, 42% using one or two platforms, and 19% using none of them. There is, however, considerable variation by national income. Multi-platform use tends to be more common in middle-income countries than in high-income countries, likely because in wealthier nations, older adults and less educated groups are more likely to stay with a single familiar platform or opt out entirely, while in developing countries, smartphones often arrive as the primary internet device, encouraging users to download multiple apps to meet communication, entertainment, and news needs. Half or more of adults in Malaysia (59%), Singapore (51%), the West Bank and East Jerusalem (61%), Chile (56%), Peru (53%), and Colombia (51%) report using at least three of the five platforms, making these some of the most multi-platform societies in the study. Conversely, non-users—those who say they use none of the five platforms—are most heavily concentrated in Germany, Japan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh, where at least a third of adults report no use of any surveyed platform. In some cases, this is tied to government restrictions: India’s ban on TikTok since 2020 removes one of the most popular apps from the market, and countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh have experienced periodic internet and social media blackouts during periods of unrest, disrupting adoption and trust. But in Germany and Japan, non-use likely reflects a combination of higher average age, privacy concerns, and a less app-centric digital culture, rather than access barriers. In every country surveyed, adults under age 35 are far more likely to be multi-platform users than those 50 and older, while the oldest adults are overwhelmingly likely to say they use no social media platform at all, underscoring how deeply age structures digital behavior across all cultural contexts.
Who becomes a multi-platform user also reveals political and educational dimensions. In many countries, education is a powerful predictor: those with higher levels of education are at least twice as likely as those with less education to use three or more platforms, reflecting the digital skills and economic resources needed to navigate a multiplatform environment. There are notable exceptions, though: in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden, more educated adults are actually less likely than less educated adults to be multi-platform users, suggesting that in some high-income societies, educational attainment correlates with more selective and privacy-conscious technology use, or with greater access to alternative communication channels. Political ideology also plays a role in a handful of countries. In Turkey, roughly half of adults on the ideological left report using three or more platforms, nearly double the share of those on the right who do so, a divide also observed in Australia, Colombia, Israel, and Thailand. The reasons for this ideological gap may vary—from differing media ecosystems and trust in mainstream versus alternative platforms, to differing social networks and demographic profiles of left- and right-leaning voters. Together, these findings paint a nuanced picture of global social media use at a moment of intensifying concern about its democratic impact. The report is part of Pew Research Center’s ongoing mission to inform the public and decision-makers about critical issues, and its authors note that while social media has become a nearly universal feature of life in most countries, its role is not monolithic: different platforms, age cohorts, income levels, and political groups experience and shape these digital spaces in profoundly different ways. As Facebook maintains its broad reach, TikTok takes off among younger populations in emerging economies, X fades in some markets but persists in others, and millions remain entirely offline from social platforms, the landscape of digital democracy remains both dynamic and deeply divided. The study’s release provides a vital baseline for researchers, policymakers, and the public to understand not only who uses social media, but how those usage patterns may influence the health of democratic institutions worldwide.
