With nearly 5 billion users worldwide, the power that social media sites hold in growing a business cannot be denied. 

Crafting an effective social media marketing plan requires understanding the finer details of its users. So aside from knowing what the most popular social media platforms are, it would also help to really know who those users are, starting with the age demographic of social media users.

In the United States, social media usage is higher among users aged 27 to 42. But what about on a global level? Worldwide, what age group uses social media the most?

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Social media age demographics of users worldwide

According to recent research, global consumers aged 20 to 29 are the biggest users of social media. Those in this age group make up nearly one-third (31.8%) of all social media users worldwide. Of these users, the majority are male. They make up 17.5% of all social media users, compared to female users aged 20 to 29, which constitute 14.3%.

Users aged 30 to 39 form the second-largest group, with 21.9%. Like the younger age group, male users form the majority. Of all the social media users worldwide, 12.1% are males aged 30 to 39, while 9.8% are females from the same age group.

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The data analyzing the social media age demographics of global users worldwide shows that the third-largest age group is 40 to 49. They account for 15% of the total number of active social media users worldwide. In other words, one out of every seven social media users falls in this age range.

This is followed by users aged 13 to 19, who make up 12.7%, and those aged 50 to 59, accounting for 10% of all social media users. The age group with the least number of active social media users is 60 and above. Just 8.6% of global users fall in this age group.

This social media age demographics research shows that in post-teenage years, the older the demographics, the less likely they are to be active on social media. According to experts, this may be because young adults tend to use social media as a go-to source of information. The older generation, on the other hand, is typically more skeptical and prefers to rely on traditional mediums like television for information.

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