Facebook: 1 Billion Users

posted in: Social Media | 6

I’ve come across an interesting article on BrianSolis about Facebook reaching 1 billion users (you read right – one billion). An estimated 9% of the account holders are fake.

Let’s make sense of what 1 billion users actually mean. Take a look at the infographic below – The Facebook Nation, from The Wall Street Journal.

Infographic on Facebook

Pretty interesting to know:

  • The median age of Facebook users is actually 22 years old
  • 1 in every 5 page views in the USA is on Facebook
  • The average time spent on Facebook is 20 minutes (honestly thought it would be higher)
  • More than 80% of Facebook users are outside the USA and Canada
  • 96% of Facebook visits were returning visitors in April 2012
  • There are more than 600 million Facebook Mobile users
  • September 14, 2012 marked the day Facebook held a record of 1 billion users

While these facts and figures may be a cause for celebration for the Facebook team, I wonder about people out there who willingly choose to be on Facebook over participating in activities away from the digital space. Granted, I am one of the people who are online (not necessarily on Facebook) a lot of the time, and that is because of certain unavoidable circumstances [ok, yes it’s my job and before that, campus work…] If I had spare time on my hands, away from Facebook and all things online I would be. But that’s my preference. And my constant concern over balancing my online activities with my life offline. I’ve looked into this before, read about it here.

Follow Saajida Akabor:

Digital Copywriter

Freelance digital copywriter; animal-lover; reader; photography enthusiast; and a tea drinker.

6 Responses

  1. YellowCable

    I am starting to see how social networking or other forms of entertainment over online or cyber space becomes part of every one life the same way TV gets into every one home for the past few decades. I am included (here typing in obviously). I think it is unavoidable whether one watches TV most of the time that he/she have some spare time or choose to be sitting in front of a computer. As your the other post says, balance is the key important thing whether it is internet or TV. What we do not know what social network or internet will change the our culture in the future is hard to see. I can see some good and some negative sides. Again, balance is the key but who can teach the next generation to see it?

  2. Saajida

    That’s true. I guess you only see it when you sit back and think to yourself how much have you achieved and how much have you relatively experienced in life.

  3. abacch03

    I’m actually guilty of having 4 fake accounts and 2 real ones =[ Shhhh dont tell anyone! I’m so ashamed lol

    • Saajida

      Haha. I am also guilty of having an inactive account. I’ve forgotten both my username and password. Can’t even remember why I opened that account…

  4. Irina Vasilieva

    I can not thank you adequately for the posts on your web site. I know you’d put a lot of time and effort into them and hope you know how much I appreciate it. I hope I’ll do exactly the same for someone else at some point.

Your thoughts?