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Social media became a dominant medium for communication connecting people worldwide. The pioneer that changed the way we communicate, conduct business, behave and live our lives launched its platform in 2004. In 2006 Facebook opened to the public and in only ten months it reached millions of users. In the third quarter of 2018, there were 2.27 billion active users worldwide.
The growth of active Facebook users worldwide is exponential--in the third quarter of 2018, the number of users has increased 22 times compared to the third quarter of 2008.
However, my point is not to discuss the popularity which is by itself evident but to compare popularity between men and women. In the past few months I asked various groups about their opinion “What do you think--who uses Facebook more, men or women?”. From my colleagues at work to employees of government institutions, to students and young people with various backgrounds--they all thought the same--women of course.
Do we assume that women are by nature more vocal, expressive and willing to share, thus use social media more than men? If I sum up the feedback from the groups in one sentence about why they think women are more active on social media, in general, it would be--women are biologically wired for social networking.
But as the famous American statistician W. Edwards Deming said: “Without data, you're just another person with an opinion.” The data compiled by Statista showed that men lead in Facebook usage worldwide.
The distribution of active Facebook users worldwide as of October 2018, sorted by age group and gender shows that 57% of the platform’s global account profiles are set to “male” and 43% to “female”. In absolute numbers, this means 1.3 billion man and 0.9 billion women are active Facebook users. From a relative comparison perspective–men account for 35% more active accounts than women.
Now that we have made the gender comparison, next let's take a look at the age of Facebook active users. There is an ongoing perception, in the US in particular that young people are turning their backs on Facebook. In their report published in February, this year eMarketer estimated that Facebook will lose 2 million users ages 24 and younger this year. They say that Facebook’s growth in users is due to the older age groups joining the network.
However, the data analysis on a global level shows that young people still make up the largest share of Facebook’s global active user-base. Only 20% of active Facebook users are older than 44 years, or 35% older than 34. The single largest age group of active users on Facebook is the one from 25 to 34 years old--accounting for 29.7% in the total number of active users. During October 2018, 423 million men and 267 million women aged 25 to 34 were using Facebook. Young men between 25 and 34 years represent the biggest group of active Facebook users worldwide accounting for 19% of the total active users.
The second most represented age group accounting for 26% of the total active users are millennials between 18 and 24 years old, with 356 million men and 245 million women actively using Facebook.
Only 20% of active Facebook users are older than 44 years. In addition, the gender differences are disappearing in the older age groups hence in this age group there is a perfect gender balance 50-50%.
The country with the highest number of Facebook users is the country with the largest population-- India accounts for 13% of the total active Facebook users . There are cultural, cognitive and other differences among countries which might affect as well the usage of Facebook by age and gender.
Without any research data I can’t rush into any conclusions but will take the freedom to share an example which shows how the data regarding gender might be biased and that is why “the real feel” is that women use Facebook more than men. In Macedonia, a small country I come from, many older married couples have only one account, which is usually the husband’s and is more often used by the wife. On the other hand, there are young couples who love and trust each other so much that have one mutual account containing both first names and one last name and it is very likely that this account is set to male as well.
