Social Media Usage Declines: A Closer Look at the Trends

My guess is that anyone who is reading this has some sort of social media that they use. Whether it’s Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, etc. And over the years, as technology has been evermore sown into our everyday lives, it’s become more uncommon to see people detached from that world. And from my perspective, I feel that social media has been consuming the lives of the people around me more and more.

Bar graph showing the number of active users in millions for various social media platforms, including Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, and others. — Social media usage. Number of active users in millions.

And so when I saw this new statistic, it had me intrigued. A study by the Financial Review found that social media peaked in 2022, and since then, usage has been down by over 10%. Every age group has seen a drop in usage, and surprisingly, the 16-24 age group has seen the largest decrease.

And I find that surprising, considering that most young people get their news from social media platforms.

I think a contribution to this in modern day is the number of countries that have heavily or completely restricted social media use. This can and has led to protests on the matter.

A big recent example of this was the huge protest that happened in Nepal. In September 2025, a large-scale protest, predominantly led by Gen Z, began over a nationwide ban on certain social media apps. This protest exemplified the public’s frustration with government corruption and the restrictions it imposes on the people.

Nepal is just one of 72 countries that have blocked certain or all social media platforms. But is that the whole reason why see have seen a drop in the use of social media?

Over the last 10 years, we have seen a significant decrease in people’s attention spans across all age groups. According to the SQ Magazine, the average attention span in 2015 was around 12 seconds. Since then, it has dropped all the way down to around 8 seconds, less than a goldfish.

And when a survey was taken, the second biggest reason people have social media, behind keeping in contact with family and friends, was to fill spare time.

Every single piece of data that was collected showed that consuming the short-form content on a daily basis decreased cognitive function. Showing a huge increase in trouble keeping attention, a decrease in memory, and focus fatigue after only 45 minutes. And that is only scratching the surface.

From all of this data collected on how hours of social media can affect your mind, I believe that people are getting “scroll fatigue.” You heard that right, it’s a real thing.

That decrease in social media use could be the result of people getting tired of how terrible the long scrolling sessions can make you feel. Now it’s only been a 10% decrease in the last three years, nowhere near a complete halt in people using social media.

However, I think this shows that our brains were made and meant for so much more than instant gratification. They were made to get bored, to spark new ideas, to test creativity, and to live in fellowship with other people. Not that that doesn’t happen today, but we seriously need to figure out how to solve this problem. Especially with the new generations, we can’t let this be all they know.