While 22.89 million South Africans are active on social media, thousands are contemplating quitting or taking a break from their online platforms, as the social media detox phenomenon gains momentum across the globe.
According to research conducted by UK-based digital marketing firm Reboot Online, SA is among the top countries whose citizens are most likely to quit social media.
The company used Ahrefs Web analytics tools to establish which countries’ citizens are most likely to abandon social media, based on key online searches indicating their clear intention to ditch social media.
Reboot Online says it classified and grouped consistently recurring Google searches by individuals on quitting social media, such as “how to delete social media?”, “how to delete Facebook?”, “how to delete Instagram?”, “how to delete Tumblr?”, “how to delete TikTok?”, “how to delete Twitter?” and “how to delete Snapchat?” as online searches which most signify users’ desire to quit social media.
A total of 155 countries from across the world were analysed for each of the identified key searches related to quitting social media.
According to the research report, SA ranks ninth on the quit scale, with an average of 31 340 online searches each month by South Africans signalling their desire to leave social media.
Millions of people across the globe are ditching social media platforms for numerous reasons, including privacy concerns, social media anxiety, depression and loneliness, cyber bullying, social media addiction, and lack of productivity as a result of more time spent online.
Americans are the most likely to quit social media, conducting an average of over 1.1 million online searches per month – indicating their intention to leave social media for good – the equivalent of 36 594 online searches each day.
India is in second position, with an average 490 000 online searches a month signalling a desire to quit social media.
The UK (300 000 online searches), Canada (109 000) and Australia (97 000) make up the balance of the top five countries where there are more than 9 000 online searches per month from citizens indicating their ambition to quit social media for the foreseeable future.
Egypt ranked in 10th position, with15 400 monthly online searches by citizens showing interest in leaving social media. The country has almost 55 million active Internet users.
“Social media for many of us has become an essential part of our daily lives. Whilst social media has many positive attributes, it can be a very toxic environment at times. This was recently exemplified by retired French footballer Thierry Henry quitting social media due to cyber bullying and racism experienced on social media,” notes the report.
While the number of active Internet users in SA is around 31.8 million, the country had more than 22.89 million active social media users in 2020 – 40% of SA’s population. This, according to Reboot Online, means around 0.098% of South African Internet users are keen to quit social media each month.
When putting this into the context of how many active Internet users there are in the US (over 312 million), this equates to 0.363% of American Internet users wishing to detox from social media platforms.
Countries that made up the balance of the top 20 list on the Reboot Online report include: United Arab Emirates, with 13 900 searches from people signalling a desire to quit social media; Netherlands (13 100); Germany (13 000); New Zealand (11 900); Algeria (9 400); Romania (9 120); Turkey (9 000); and Kenya (8 100).
At the other end, in 30th spot, is Spain with an average 3 330 online searches a month. Spain has 42 400 756 Internet users, which means 0.008% want to quit social media on a monthly basis.
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