Social media's population breaks through 5 billion—study

The number of active social media users has risen to more than 5 billion, or about 62.3% of humanity, according to a study published Wednesday, Jan. 31.

The number rose 5.6% last year, outpacing the 0.9% 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.  

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 AI language model developed by OpenAI, underscoring the exploding interest in artificial intelligence.

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