Global creative agency We Are Social and media management platform Hootsuite have released Digital in 2018 – a report of social media and digital trends around the world.
Reporting on 239 countries and territories, the seventh annual report has found that internet user numbers increased seven per cent in the last 12 months to hit 4.021 billion, or 53 per cent of the world’s population.
Further to this, global social media usage has increased by 13 per cent in the last 12 months, reaching 3.196 billion users; and mobile social media usage has increased by 14 percent year over year to 2.958 billion users –with 93 percent of social media users accessing social from mobile.
Specifically looking at Australia, the study found that as of 2017 90 per cent of Australia’s population are now online. In addition to this, Australians are spending 80 per cent more time on the internet than watching television; and two-thirds of Australians are using social media each month, spending almost 100 minutes on social platforms each day.
In terms of predicting what’s next for the internet, report leader and global consultant at We Are Social, Simon Kemp, has foreshadowed that “audio-visual content will take priority over text – especially in social media and messaging apps,” and that “voice commands and cameras will replace keyboards as our primary means of input”.
