Most popular reasons for internet users worldwide to use social media as of 2nd quarter 2026
The reasons people use social media reveal what social media actually is to the people who use it — and the 2026 data tells a more complex story than the simple "keeping in touch" narrative that defined social media's early cultural positioning. While connection (51% cite keeping in touch with friends and family) remains the single most cited reason, the second-highest reason — filling spare time (47%) — is fundamentally about passive consumption and entertainment, not social connection. Combined with "finding funny or entertaining content" (42%) and "watching video content" (31%), entertainment-oriented reasons collectively dwarf connection reasons when considered as a category. Social media in 2026 is primarily an entertainment platform that also enables social connection — not primarily a social connection platform that also provides entertainment.
This reframing has significant implications for how platforms are built, monetised, and regulated. The 5.42 billion social media users tracked in our global social media users analysis are increasingly using platforms in consumption mode rather than creation mode — scrolling algorithmically curated feeds rather than posting original content or actively maintaining social connections. Product discovery (34%) has emerged as the third major usage category alongside connection and entertainment, reflecting the deep integration of social commerce into platform design from 2021 onward.
The chart's top-five hierarchy — connection (51%), passive entertainment (47%), news (43%), active entertainment (42%), trend-watching (36%) — reflects the blending of social media's original social function with the entertainment and media consumption behaviours that TikTok's algorithm-driven model has normalised across all platforms. The 34% product discovery figure — placing it between entertainment and professional reasons — confirms that social commerce has achieved mainstream legitimacy as a purchasing motivation. Instagram Shopping — detailed in our Instagram statistics analysis — and TikTok Shop have transformed the "I saw it on social media" purchase pathway from an outlier experience to a routine one for a third of all social media users. The platforms hosting these behaviours are ranked in our biggest social media platforms by users analysis.
Social Media Usage Reasons — Full Data Table Q2 2026
The table shows each reason's global citation rate, year-on-year change from Q2 2025, change since 2019, category classification, and primary platform association. Daily usage behaviour is tracked in our daily social media usage worldwide analysis.
| Reason | Q2 2026 (%) | vs Q2 2025 | vs 2019 | Category | Top Platform |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keep in touch with friends/family | 51% | -1pp | -3pp | Connection | WhatsApp, Facebook |
| Fill spare time / pass the time | 47% | +1pp | +5pp | Entertainment | TikTok, Instagram |
| Read news stories | 43% | -1pp | -6pp | News | X/Twitter, Facebook |
| Find funny or entertaining content | 42% | +2pp | +8pp | Entertainment | TikTok, YouTube |
| See what is trending or in the news | 36% | 0pp | +2pp | News | TikTok, X/Twitter |
| Share photos or videos | 36% | -1pp | -2pp | Creation | Instagram, Snapchat |
| Find products to buy / brand research | 34% | +2pp | +11pp | Commerce | Instagram, TikTok |
| Watch video content / TV shows | 31% | +1pp | +7pp | Entertainment | YouTube, TikTok |
| Follow celebrity / influencer content | 26% | 0pp | +3pp | Entertainment | Instagram, TikTok |
| Network for work / career purposes | 25% | +1pp | +7pp | Professional | |
| Get news about brands or products | 23% | 0pp | +4pp | Commerce | Instagram, Facebook |
| Find inspiration for things to do/buy | 22% | +1pp | +5pp | Commerce | Pinterest, Instagram |
The data table's most important trend column is "vs 2019" — which shows the structural shifts in social media motivation over the past seven years. News consumption has declined the most (-6pp) as major platforms including Facebook and Instagram deliberately reduced news content visibility in their algorithms following regulatory and advertiser pressure. Product discovery has grown the most (+11pp) as social commerce infrastructure matured across every major platform. Professional networking (+7pp) and video content consumption (+7pp) both reflect platform-level investments that have created new behaviours — LinkedIn expanding globally and YouTube/TikTok normalising social video as a substitute for traditional media. The marketer platforms driving these commerce behaviours are analysed in our social media platforms used by marketers worldwide analysis.
Product Discovery +11pp Since 2019 — News -6pp as Platforms Deprioritise News Content
Tracking the top social media usage reasons from 2019 to 2026 reveals structural shifts that reflect both platform algorithm changes and evolving user behaviour. The most significant trend is the rise of product discovery (from 23% to 34%) — driven by Instagram Shopping (2019 global launch), TikTok Shop (2021 Southeast Asia, 2023 US/UK), and Pinterest Commerce integrations that have made social media a primary product discovery channel. News consumption's decline (from 49% to 43%) reflects deliberate platform decisions to reduce news content distribution following political controversy, advertiser safety concerns, and regulatory pressure — particularly in the EU and Australia where governments pursued news bargaining codes.
The trend chart's crossing lines are commercially significant: "fill spare time" (entertainment) crossed "keep in touch" (connection) as the second-most-cited reason somewhere around 2023–2024, and the gap between entertainment reasons and connection reasons has continued to widen. This trajectory — if continued — suggests that the connection narrative will no longer accurately describe what social media is primarily used for within a few years. Platform product decisions already reflect this: TikTok's entire design prioritises entertainment discovery over social connection, and Meta's decision to invest heavily in Reels explicitly acknowledges that entertainment is now the primary engagement driver even on platforms originally built for connection. The time spent on social platforms driving these behaviours is in our daily social media usage worldwide analysis.
16–24s: Entertainment Leads at 58% — 55+: Keeping in Touch at 68% — Age Completely Reverses the Priority Order
The age-group breakdown of social media usage reasons reveals that the top reason nationally (keeping in touch at 51%) is the product of two dramatically different populations being averaged together: young users who primarily use social media for entertainment, and older users who primarily use it for connection. 16–24 year olds' top reason is "finding funny or entertaining content" at 58% — significantly above their keeping-in-touch citation (44%). For 55+ year olds, the order is completely inverted: keeping in touch leads at 68% while entertainment-seeking falls to approximately 28%. The 35–54 bracket sits between these extremes, with keeping in touch (approximately 62%) still edging entertainment but the gap narrowing significantly relative to older cohorts.
The age breakdown chart's most actionable insight for platform strategy is the 16–24 cohort's high "see what is trending" citation (52%) — the single highest citation for any reason in any age group, exceeding even their entertainment seeking (58% for entertainment vs 52% for trending). Trend awareness has become a social currency for young users: being current, discovering viral content before it becomes mainstream, and participating in cultural moments in real-time is a primary social motivation in itself. This behaviour is what TikTok's algorithm is most precisely designed to serve — and is why TikTok's engagement metrics among 16–24 year olds are the strongest of any platform. The broader user base context is in our global social media users worldwide analysis.
Women Lead on Connection (+8pp) and Inspiration (+9pp) — Men Lead on News (+7pp) and Professional Networking (+8pp)
The gender breakdown of social media usage reasons shows consistent and statistically meaningful differences that reflect broader patterns in how women and men use digital platforms differently. Women are more likely than men to cite social connection reasons — keeping in touch with friends and family (women: 55%, men: 47%, +8pp female gap) — and inspiration-seeking (women: 26%, men: 17%, +9pp female gap). Men are more likely to cite news consumption (men: 47%, women: 40%, +7pp male gap) and professional networking (men: 29%, women: 21%, +8pp male gap). These patterns are consistent with broader research on offline communication and professional networking differences and have remained stable across GWI survey waves since 2019.
The gender gap in product discovery (women: 38%, men: 30%, +8pp female gap) is commercially significant for social commerce platforms: women are the primary social commerce audience, and the design of shopping features on Instagram, TikTok Shop, and Pinterest is implicitly optimised for female discovery behaviour. This creates a self-reinforcing dynamic where female users find more relevant commerce content, engage more with shopping features, and generate more social commerce revenue — which in turn attracts more commerce investment in the platforms those users prefer. The search-driven product discovery that complements social commerce is tracked in our search engine usage analysis.
Southeast Asia Leads Product Discovery at 52% — Western Europe Lowest for Commerce, Highest for News
Regional variation in social media usage reasons is substantial, reflecting the different maturity stages of social commerce, the different roles of social media in news ecosystems, and cultural differences in how connection is maintained digitally. Southeast Asia stands out with the highest product discovery rate (52%) — reflecting the region's highly advanced social commerce ecosystem where TikTok Shop, Shopee, and Lazada have made social-led shopping a mainstream behaviour. Latin America shows the highest entertainment citation rate (approximately 54% for finding funny or entertaining content). Western Europe shows the highest news consumption rate (approximately 51%) — reflecting social media's role as a primary news source in markets where traditional newspaper consumption has declined sharply.
North America's relatively low product discovery rate (28% vs global average of 34%) appears counterintuitive given the sophistication of US e-commerce. However, it reflects that American consumers have well-established search-led product discovery habits (Amazon, Google Shopping) and have been slower to adopt social-led commerce than Southeast Asian markets where traditional e-commerce infrastructure was less developed when social platforms arrived. The trajectory is shifting: TikTok Shop's US launch and Instagram Shopping's continued improvement are growing product discovery rates in North America from their lower base. The retail e-commerce context is in our retail e-commerce sales growth worldwide analysis.
WhatsApp Dominated by Connection (78%) — TikTok by Entertainment (72%) — LinkedIn by Professional (84%)
The usage reason profile of each major social media platform reveals the distinct functional niches that different platforms occupy in users' lives. WhatsApp is overwhelmingly used for connection: approximately 78% of WhatsApp users cite keeping in touch with friends and family as their primary reason — the highest connection score of any platform. TikTok is the most entertainment-oriented platform: approximately 72% of TikTok users cite finding funny or entertaining content as a primary reason, with "filling spare time" at approximately 68%. LinkedIn has the highest professional networking rate by far at approximately 84%. Instagram uniquely bridges multiple reasons simultaneously — connection, entertainment, inspiration, and product discovery — making it the most multi-purpose platform in the ecosystem.
The platform-by-reason chart confirms what platform design choices signal: each major platform has successfully carved a distinct functional niche, but Instagram's multi-purpose positioning makes it the most commercially valuable platform for brands that want to reach users across connection, discovery, inspiration, and entertainment moments simultaneously. Pinterest's product discovery rate (58%) is the highest of any platform — confirming that while Pinterest has fewer total users, those users are in a uniquely high commercial intent mode when using it. This platform-level insight is why Pinterest's advertising CPM for shopping campaigns is among the highest of any social media platform despite its smaller user base. The full social media marketing context is in our social media platforms used by marketers worldwide analysis.
Entertainment Reasons Collectively Outnumber Connection — When Categorised, Social Media Is Primarily an Entertainment Medium
When social media usage reasons are grouped into categories — connection, entertainment, news/information, commerce/discovery, creation, and professional — the individual rankings present a different picture than the category totals. While "keeping in touch" is the single most cited reason (51%), the entertainment category collectively represents the largest share of social media motivation: filling spare time (47%) + finding entertaining content (42%) + watching videos (31%) + following influencers (26%) = a combined entertainment score that dwarfs any other category when aggregated. This categorisation framework reveals that social media's original positioning as a "social network" increasingly misrepresents what the majority of usage time actually consists of — passive entertainment consumption in algorithmically curated feeds.
The category chart's finding — entertainment leading at 74% of users citing at least one entertainment reason — has direct implications for how social media should be regulated, measured, and monetised. Regulators who focus on social media's "social" harms (anxiety from social comparison, cyberbullying, FOMO) may be targeting a diminishing portion of actual usage; the growing concern should be the entertainment harms (attention economy, addictive design, passive consumption). For marketers, the category finding confirms that entertainment-format content (short-form video, memes, live streaming) consistently outperforms information-format content (blog links, text posts, infographics) in organic reach. The full social media statistics context is in our social media statistics and facts analysis.
Social Media Usage Reasons — Key Statistics Q2 2026
Frequently Asked Questions — Social Media Usage Reasons Worldwide
The most common reason internet users worldwide give for using social media in Q2 2026 is keeping in touch with friends and family, cited by approximately 51%. This has been the top reason consistently since GWI began tracking in 2018. It is followed by filling spare time (47%), reading news stories (43%), finding funny or entertaining content (42%), and seeing what is trending (36%). However, when entertainment reasons are grouped as a category, they collectively exceed connection — approximately 74% cite at least one entertainment reason versus approximately 62% for connection. Source: GWI Global Web Index Q2 2026, DataReportal We Are Social 2026. ±3–5 percentage points.
Both — but when aggregated by category, entertainment reasons collectively outweigh connection reasons. While "keeping in touch" (51%) is the single most cited reason, the entertainment category as a whole — filling spare time (47%) + finding funny content (42%) + watching videos (31%) + following influencers (26%) — is cited by approximately 74% of users (at least one entertainment reason). Connection as a category reaches approximately 62%. The gap has widened since 2019 as short-form video has made entertainment the primary engagement driver on most major platforms. Source: GWI Q2 2026. ±3–5 percentage points per reason.
Approximately 34% of internet users worldwide cite finding products to buy or researching brands as a reason for using social media in Q2 2026 — up from approximately 23% in 2019 (+11pp), the largest growth of any reason in the series. Product discovery is highest in Southeast Asia (approximately 52%) and lowest in Western Europe (approximately 24%). Among platforms, Pinterest records the highest rate (approximately 58% of users cite it for product discovery), followed by Instagram and TikTok. Women (38%) are more likely than men (30%) to cite this reason. Source: GWI Q2 2026, DataReportal 2026. ±3–5 percentage points.
Yes — age completely reverses the priority order. Among 16–24 year olds, finding funny or entertaining content leads at approximately 58%, with keeping in touch a secondary reason at approximately 44%. Among 55+ year olds, keeping in touch leads at approximately 68%, with entertainment reasons falling to approximately 28%. The 25–34 bracket sits closer to the 55+ pattern (connection leading), while 35–54 year olds show a mixed profile with connection (62%) ahead of news (51%) and entertainment (38%). Source: GWI Global Web Index Q2 2026. ±4–6 percentage points per age group per reason.
Approximately 43% of internet users worldwide cite reading news stories as a reason for using social media in Q2 2026 — the third most cited reason. However, this has declined from approximately 49% in 2019 (-6pp), the largest decline of any usage reason. The decline reflects platform decisions to reduce news content visibility in algorithmic feeds. Western Europe shows the highest news consumption rate (approximately 51%). Men are more likely than women to cite news consumption (47% vs 40%). X/Twitter and Facebook — the latter covered in our Facebook statistics analysis — remain the primary news-oriented social platforms. Source: GWI Q2 2026. ±3–5 percentage points.
Approximately 25% of internet users worldwide cite professional networking as a reason for using social media — up from approximately 18% in 2019 (+7pp). This rises to approximately 84% among LinkedIn users specifically, and to approximately 42% among users aged 25–44. Men are more likely to cite professional networking (29%) than women (21%). The growth in professional networking as a social media motivation reflects LinkedIn's expanding global reach and the post-pandemic increase in remote working, which has made online professional networks more important. Source: GWI Q2 2026. ±3–5 percentage points.
Southeast Asia leads social media product discovery at approximately 52% — significantly above the global average of 34%. This reflects the region's highly advanced social commerce ecosystem (TikTok Shop, Shopee, Lazada) where social-led purchasing is mainstream. Latin America follows at approximately 42%. North America (approximately 28%) and Western Europe (approximately 24%) show the lowest rates — reflecting established search-led e-commerce habits where Google Shopping and Amazon are the primary product discovery channels. However, TikTok Shop's US expansion is growing North American rates. Source: GWI Q2 2026. ±4–6 percentage points per region.
The biggest shifts in social media usage reasons between 2019 and Q2 2026: product discovery has grown most (+11pp from 23% to 34%); entertainment — finding funny content — has grown (+8pp); professional networking has grown (+7pp); video consumption has grown (+7pp). News consumption has declined most (-6pp from 49% to 43%). Keeping in touch remains #1 but has declined slightly (-3pp from 54% to 51%). The overall pattern shows social media shifting from primarily social-connection to primarily entertainment-and-commerce, with news declining as platforms suppress news algorithmically. Source: GWI Flagship Reports 2019–2026. ±3–5 percentage points per reason.
GWI Global Web Index — Q2 2026 Flagship Report / Social Media Report 2026 — Primary source for all social media usage reason data. GWI surveys approximately 800,000 internet users aged 16–64 quarterly across 50+ countries. The "Why do you use social media?" multi-select question is asked in every quarterly wave, enabling trend comparison. All global and demographic breakdowns in this report are from GWI Q2 2026 unless otherwise noted.
DataReportal — We Are Social Global Digital Report 2026 — Cross-reference source for global social media usage reasons, providing independent validation of GWI figures and additional platform-level breakdowns. DataReportal publishes annual and semi-annual reports drawing on GWI data alongside other research sources. Used for regional and platform-specific usage reason figures.
Statista — Social Media Monitor 2026 / Social Media Usage Statistics — Supplementary source for trend comparisons and advertising context. Statista aggregates social media usage reason surveys from multiple research providers, enabling cross-validation of GWI figures and providing additional demographic cuts not available in single-source data.
LinkedIn Business Insights — Professional Networking Usage Data 2026 — Primary source for LinkedIn-specific professional networking reason data. LinkedIn publishes platform-level engagement and usage motivation data through its B2B Institute research programme. Used for the LinkedIn professional networking citation figure (84% of LinkedIn users) and professional networking trend data.
