UPDATE: Graph amended.

Over half of the world’s population is online while you read this. In 2017, a quarter of a billion new users joined the world of internet for the first time. Today, 45% of the world’s population is on social media with 4.39 billion internet users in 2019, an increase of 366 million from 2018.

The new 2019 Global Digital suite reports from We Are Social and Hootsuite reveals that  internet users are growing every day with an average of more than a million.  With affordable smartphones and internet plans and improved mobile connections, Asia has one of the highest numbers of internet users.  But what are they exactly doing while they are online? Among internet users, social media apps dominate the time spent online with 3.5 billion social media users in 2019. Watching videos online is another favorite, with 92% users watching an online video.

It is not just the number of people using the internet that has increased but there is a steep increase in the amount of time people spend on the internet.

Filipinos continue to spend the greatest amount of time on social media for the fourth year in a row closely followed by Indonesians, Thais and Malaysians.  On an average, a Filipino social media user spends 4 hours and 12 minutes, an increase of 15 minutes per day from the figure reported last year. 

However the least interested nation in using social media in a digital era is Japan, spending 36 minutes per day on social media platforms. Trailing behind Japan is South Korea with an hour and 12 minutes.

Data also highlights that the most popular social media apps in 2019 are Facebook and Whatsapp. In fact, Facebook dominates all other apps with over 2 billion users.