How Much Time Iranians Spend on Social Media

EghtesadOnline: Every Iranian over the age of 15 on average every day spends 64 minutes on social media platforms, the Statistical Center of Iran says in a report.

News ID: ۷۴۶۲۷۲

01 December 2018

A national survey ‘Culture of Iranian Families’ has been conducted by the center the results of which were released Wednesday on the SCI website amar.org.ir. The survey looked into the cultural traits of Iranians over the age of 15.

It was found that 53% of Iranians over the age of 15 (31.9 million people) use at least one social media platform.

As of 2017, social media usage of global Internet users amounted to 135 minutes per day, up from 126 minutes in the year before, data released by statistics, market research and business intelligence portal Statista shows, according to Financial Tribune.

The number of people using social networks surpassed 2 billion in 2016. The most popular social network worldwide is Facebook with 1.86 billion monthly active users by the end of 2016. Other popular social networks include WeChat, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and Sina Weibo.

Some mobile messaging apps such as LINE and Telegram have transformed into social platforms by including profile timelines and games. The global average social network penetration rate is 37%.

Iranian Preferences

The Iranian Students' Polling Agency (ISPA) recently released results of another poll conducted on phone in which 1,281 people over the age of 18 were questioned about social media platforms they use.

It said 62.5% of those surveyed used Telegram before the service was blocked in Iran in May. Close to 47.3% of the individuals are now using proxies and VPN services to use Telegram.

Telegram is a cloud-based instant messaging and voice over IP service developed by Telegram Messenger LLP, a privately held company registered in London.

After Telegram was blocked, the share of Iranians employing the messaging app WhatsApp shot up from 12% to 30%. Furthermore, Instagram’s popularity almost doubled with 32.2% of those surveyed saying that they are now using Instagram, which is significantly higher than the17.7% before Telegram was banned.

ISPA said 66% of Iranians over the age of 18 are active social media users. Some 46.7% of those questioned by ISPA said they use foreign social media platforms like Telegram, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Locally developed social media platforms have visibly failed to gain traction with Iranians as hardly 3.9% of those surveyed said they “only use the homegrown services”.

According to ISPA, Telegram is still the most popular social media platform with 47.3% of people using the messaging app. Telegram is followed by Instagram with 32.2%, and WhatsApp with 30%. Some 3.6% of Iranians use Facebook, and 2.7% Twitter.

Since May and after authorities blocked Telegram, the popularity of homegrown messaging apps declined. ISPA says among those surveyed, the share of people using Soroush messaging app dropped to 4.3% from 13.5% in May.

Only 0.9% of those questioned use Eitaa, down from 2.9% in May, and 0.4% employ iGap significantly lower than the 2.5% a few months earlier.

Communication Infrastructure

Over the past decade, there has been visible growth in the access to communications in Iran, especially in the expanding urban areas. The healthy growth is largely thanks to mobile communications, and more recently, the introduction of the third and fourth generation (3G and 4G) mobile telecommunication technology.

According to Iran Communication Regulatory Authority’s data published on opendata.cra.ir, 71 million Iranians have access to broadband Internet service. Over 10 million landline Internet subscriptions are registered in the country while 61.2 million people use 3G and 4G mobile Internet services sold by local companies. Internet penetration rate stands at 86.8% in Iran.

It has been reported that there are 91.8 million active SIM cards in the country and 82% of roadways across the country have cellphone coverage. There are 30.6 million landline telephone subscribers and 52,599 villages or 85% of the rural areas have access to telephony services. The population stands at 81.2 million.