Social media has definitely changed the world in the last decade. In this narrative visualization we will look at the inception of social media platforms and how social media has impacted the way people spend their time.
The narrative structure being used is an interactive slideshow, which is a hybrid structure in the narrative visualization spectrum.
You can navigate through the slides either by using the Next and Previous buttons at the top or by using left and right arrow keys on your keyboard
This presentation has been tested to work on both Chrome and Firefox browser with a screen width of 1100px or higher.
Created by Sithira Sahan Serasinghe (sithira2@illinois.edu)
Source Code: https://github.com/sahan91/data-visualization-project
We will first look at how social media platforms have grown from its inception. With a total global population of 7.7 billion there are at least 3.3 billion people online. It is reported that Facebook alone has reached 2.6 billion monthly active users in 2020.
Social media platforms such as MySpace who dominated the space has disappeared by 2008 and competitors such as Facebook has remained dominant in the last decade. It is also worth noting that new social platforms such as TikTok has reached 500M in 2018 within a year.
The below chart depicts the growth of the prominent social media platforms. You can drill down on a particular year using the slider as well as see their growth from 2004 to 2018 as an animation using the Play button.
In the next chart, we will look at which ago groups usually spend their time on social media in the US over the years.
Now we will look at trends in social media consumption by different age groups in the US. Overall, we can see a growth in the recent years in social media consumption by different age groups. It is worth noting that young adults of ages 18-29 range were the early adoptors of social media platforms we looked at in the previous slide. They also continue to be the biggest propotion of users
Usage of older adults have also grown due to the increased familarity with social media platforms.
The below chart depicts trends for adults who log in to social platforms via any device as a percentage of their respective age groups in the US from 2005 to 2019. You can select different age groups and see their usage trends by clicking on the dropdown below.
In the next chart, we will look at a different perspective on which social media platforms are most popular amoung Men and Women, in the US.
In this chart we look at the distribution of the usage of different social media platforms among Men and Women in the US. Even though dominant players such as Facebook and Youtube are popular amoung Men and Women, Facebook remains the most popular option among Women and Youtube among Men.
Other competitors such as Pinterest and Reddit also has the same effect and we can see that different social media platforms have had an impact on gender wise.
The below chart depicts the social media usage for both Men and Women in the US for 2019. You can click the buttons Men and Women below to see how the distributions change for change for major social media platforms.
In the next chart, we will look at how social media has impacted the way people spend their time.
Finally, we can see that the amount of time adults spend online has increased over the years. A decline of Desktop usage can be seen starting from 2013 onwards. A rapid increase of Mobile usage has caused adults to spend more time online. This has caused a total of more than 6 hours spent daily on average.
With the advancements in mobile technology and the introduction of "Apps" by social media platforms has caused a rapid growth of the usage in Mobile sector. Other categories include mediums such as gaming consoles, Smart TVs etc.
The below chart depicts the distribution among 3 categories Mobile, Desktop and Other from 2008 - 2018 for the US. You can hover over the chart legends to highlight each group and see their growth over the years.
With the rapid growth of technology and making social media platforms easily accessible has defintely made an impact on how people spend their time.
In order to best convey the narrative, several data sources have been used.