SHAH ALAM - Malaysians are found to be addicted to social media when roughly 26.8 million users waste two hours and 47 minutes of their time in a day on the internet or almost 20 hours a week browsing.
The findings were from the 2023 Digital yearly report released by Meltwater, a global lead in media and social media information as well as We Are Social for January 2023.
The report found users between the age of 25 to 34 were the most active online.
Research revealed three main reasons for internet users to browse which were information searching (76.2 per cent), keeping up with current news at 65.8 per cent and maintaining contact with friends and family (64.2 per cent).
The same report found WhatsApp as the leading social media application used at 89.3 per cent, Facebook (84.8 per cent) and Instagram (74.3 per cent), while TikTok was rising in popularity among Malaysians especially among the youth.
"WhatsApp is mostly used in the country because of its functions that are simple and could pull the interests of users from various ages, Facebook maintained its position as the platform of choice due to its development as a flexible social media hub for entertainment, news and online shopping.
"Instagram is more towards interests and well-arranged design from an image and visual standpoint to pull the interests of users. TikTok continues to gain popularity as it is main choice for the younger generation currently,” the report said.
Data showed over 44 million mobile connections in 2023 which was an increase of 1.2 million or 2.9 per cent compared to the previous year.
The increase could be summarised that almost all Malaysians have access to a cellular network parallel with the importance of using the device for communication, entertainment, business aspects and so on.
"It is quite clear that two thirds of the citizens in the country purchase items online through their mobile phones,” the report said.
The report found expenditures on digital media advertisements have increased over USD$747.5 million (RM3.4 billion) worth which is an increase by 18.6 per cent compared to the previous year.
The main factor of this increase was led by social media users continuing to increase and the high trust for online shopping platforms which has lead to online shopping purposes.
As a whole, the report showed that the average social media user aged between 16 to 64 years old spent eight hours and two minutes online each month showing a drop of 11 per cent.
The drop shows the awareness and increasing efforts among the public towards time wasted on social media.
Research done by proxy supply Proxyrack found Malaysia was in second place for most social media usage in the world as reported by Wion News.
Reasearch found Malaysia shared the spot with Philippines by recording a score of 8.75 out of 10 while United Arab Emirates (UAE) recorded a score of 9.55.
Malaysians on average used eight social media platforms.
South Africa placed highest in social media usage by spending almost 10 hours a day on social media, followed by Brazil (nine hours and 14 minutes) and Thailand (nine hours and six minutes).
South Korea recorded the best internet access in the world overall with a score of 8.52 out of 10, followed by Hong Kong (7.90), Denmark (7.22) while Malaysia scored fifth at 6.19.