There’s a reason data is called “the new crude oil” of modern-day society. Without it, the jobs, entertainment, and amount of information we have about our world wouldn’t have existed.
But let’s think about how much data we actually generate every minute. Is it massive? Well, yes, it is. A considerable amount of data gets created every minute.
Now, the next question is how much data is created? Here is where it becomes interesting.
Surprisingly, Google, Facebook, and Twitter may struggle to keep a proper count of data generated every minute for many years, even if they had such an interest.
Excitingly, today’s data-driven world has enabled us to advance our knowledge and understand how much data is generated every minute. Check out the facts below.
How Much Data Is Created Every Minute?
To get a proper scope of the amount of data generated every minute, let’s look at the various applications (YouTube, Google, Facebook, etc.).
Google Searches Per Minute:
So, how many searches does Google record per minute? Google reportedly handles 3.8 million searches every minute across the globe. Now that’s a lot of data.
When you work out this figure, you’ll discover that Google records 228 million searchers per hour and 5.6 billion searches daily. In a year, this amounts to 2 trillion searches.
However, Google doesn’t collect users’ data for data collection’s sake. The Google algorithm uses the data to update and improve its search functionality.
A Handy Tip: Google collects data when people utilize its services, apps, and devices. They get it from people’s browsing behavior, YouTube and Gmail activities, Google searches, location history, online purchases, and more.
The bottom line is that Google collects billions of data every single minute.
Twitter Tweets Per Minute:
If you’re a fan of the bird app “Twitter,” you’ll understand that the app currently generates a lot of data every minute. The data generated stems from tweets. And with the population of active users increasing now and then, it is evident that Twitter will be generating more data daily.
In 2007, Twitter only recorded 5,000 tweets daily. But in 2013, the number of tweets went up to 500,000,000 per day.
Today, in 2022, Twitter records 350,000 tweets per minute. When you finally break it down, it amounts to 6,000 tweets per second.
So, in a nutshell, Twitter records 200 billion tweets per year.
Interesting Facts About Twitter
- People spend an average of 6 minutes on Twitter.
- The average Twitter user will spend 5.1 hours monthly on Twitter.
- 30% of Twitter users are women, while 70% are males. It is only a matter of time before we start seeing more women on the microblogging site.
- Twitter is the 7th most favorite app in the world, above Messenger, Snapchat, Pinterest, and Telegram. Users aged 16 – 64 favor the app. However, Whatsapp is the most popular, followed by Instagram and Facebook.
- Twitter.com is currently the 9th most-visited website globally.
All these stats indicate that Twitter has the potential to become the most popular application or microblogging site in the future. And consequently, they may generate more data.
Instagram Posts Per Minute:
Instagram is the second most popular app globally (only behind Whatsapp). And since its acquisition by Facebook on April 9, 2012, Instagram’s user base has continued to increase.
Facebook bought Instagram for a reported fee of $1 billion (a combination of company shares and cash).
Now the question is, how many Instagram posts get shared per minute?
Omnicore reports that 1,074 pictures are posted on Instagram per second. Now that’s approximately 64,440 per minute and 4 million unique images per hour.
Furthermore, the number of pictures and images uploaded on Instagram daily is approximately 95 million.
Now, the amount of posts is below apps that allow the posting of simple texts. But let’s not forget the images and videos uploaded on Instagram are unique.
Instagram was created on October 6, 2010. So the platform could have gathered over 50 billion videos and pictures currently.
This figure will also increase over the years, given that the app’s user base is constantly growing. Facebook’s acquisition has also contributed to the steady rise in popularity and user base Instagram is enjoying.
Interesting Facts About Instagram:
- Approximate 5 million unique videos were posted on Instagram within 24 hours when the video-posting feature was made available in 2013.
- 70% of online shoppers use Instagram to learn about new products.
- Instagram alone has over 500,000 influences.
- The population of women on Instagram is twice that of men.
- Over 200 million businesses around the globe are using Instagram.
- In 2020, users were spending around 30 minutes on Instagram daily.
Facebook Posts Per Minute:
In the second quarter of 2022, Facebook had 2.93 billion active users, making it the most-used online social media platform globally.
Now with that kind of user base, there’s no denying that Facebook can generate a massive amount of data per minute. But how much data are we looking at here?
Firstly, note that 54,977 posts are posted on Facebook per second, which equates to 3,298,620 posts per minute. Now, this figure is only for posts made on the platform. Don’t forget people also post videos and pictures on Facebook.
So, 243,055 pictures are posted on Facebook every minute. The platform records 100 million hours of video content daily and approximately 4.1 million hours of video content every minute.
So, Facebook generates a lot of data per minute, which includes text, photos, and videos.
Interacting Facts About Facebook:
- Facebook records over 4.5 billion likes daily.
- 10 billion Face messages are exchanged daily, contributing to the massive amount of data the platform generates daily.
- The total number of photos uploaded on Facebook is over 250 billion.
- Over 30% of all Senior citizens of the United States use Facebook.
- On average, Facebook videos that boast numbers in their titles get higher views. For example, “10 Best,” “5 tips,” “7 Things,” etc.
- 500 million people reportedly watch videos on Facebook daily.
- 85% of videos watch videos on Facebook with the sound turned off.
- 36.8% of the world’s population uses Facebook. But then, only 4.6 billion people out of 7.9 billion in the world have access to the internet. It, therefore, means that 58.8% of people who have internet access use Facebook.
- Over 1 billion stories are shared on Facebook every day.
- 54% of Americans (2022 population is 322 million) have a Facebook account.
- Facebook users spend 19.6 hours on average every month on the platform.
Email Sent Per Minute:
Tons of email messages are sent daily. And while some of these messages may include one or more documents, others may only include plain text.
But then, we cannot deny that millions of email messages are sent daily. The question now is how much is sent every minute.
In 2022, reports have shown that 3.5 million emails will be delivered daily. And this means 210 million emails will be sent per minute and 333.2 billion per day.
Interacting Facts About Emails:
- In 2022, there will be approximately 4.26 billion email users worldwide.
- Tuesday is the best time for email users that want quick replies to send an email.
- Over 90% of adults in the United States use email.
- 85% of all email messages are spam.
- Gmail blocks 100 million spam emails daily.
- 20% of Americans check their inboxes for new messages more than five times daily.
YouTube Posts Per Minute:
YouTube is another platform that gets massive data per minute. YouTubers post tons of media content on the platform daily.
YouTube was created in 2005, but Google purchased it in 2006 for $1.6 billion. It is the second most-visited platform, only behind Google search.
So, how much media content do people post on YouTube per minute? The answer is over 500 hours of video per minute.
That is 30,000 hours of videos per hour and 720,000 hours of video per day uploaded on the platform.
A Handy Tip: As of 2017, only 60 hours of videos were uploaded on YouTube per minute and one hour of video per second.
In 2022, we are talking about 500 hours of video uploaded per minute. This is clear evidence that, in years to come, the size of videos uploaded to the platform per minute will increase massively.
Interesting Facts About YouTube
- Facebook is the only social media platform with more active users than YouTube. Facebook has 2.93 billion users, while YouTube has 2.6 billion users.
- A report by Statista shows that 62% of global consumers claim to use YouTube.
- YouTube rank as the second-most-popular search engine. Google search engine is the first.
- YouTube has been localized in over 100 countries and is available in 80 languages.
- People around the world watch a billion hours of videos on YouTube daily.
- 63% of people that watch YouTube videos do so from their mobile device.
WhatsApp Messages Per Minute:
WhatsApp is another platform that generates a lot of data. Users exchange millions of missions in the app every minute.
WhatsApp was initially released in August 2009, but Facebook acquired it in 2014 in a deal worth $16 billion.
The number of users on the app has increased since Facebook’s acquisition. In 2022, statistics show that WhatsApp had 2.44 billion users worldwide.
It ranks as the most-used app worldwide and a popular messaging application across over 100 countries. India boasts the highest number of Whatsapp users (over 390 million active users).
So, how many messages are sent on WhatsApp per minute? Approximately 69 million messages are exchanged on WhatsApp daily. That is roughly 4.2 billion messages per hour.
Furthermore, note that messages sent on WhatsApp include text and documents (media files and word documents). And these files come in different sizes.
Interesting Facts About WhatsApp
- WhatsApp holds the record as the most popular social messaging app worldwide. It beats Facebook messenger, Telegram, WeChat, QQ, and Snapchat.
- People spend over 2 billion minutes on WhatsApp on video and voice calls daily.
- On average, WhatsApp users spend 18.6 hours on the app every month. In a week, that is 4.6 hours.
- WhatsApp Indonesia users spend more time on the app. They spend an average of 31.6 hours.
- WhatsApp is ranked the third most-used social media platform.
- With WhatsApp, you can have a conversation with 256 individuals simultaneously from anywhere in the globe, as long as they have access to WiFi or data.
The Amount Of Data On The Internet
Data is being produced daily. But how much data is currently available on the internet?
Here is a quick start to help you understand.
- In 2022, it was estimated that the world would generate and consume 94 zettabytes of data. Now, this is a massive leap from the 44 zettabytes in 2020.
- By 2030, nine out of ten children (aged six and above) would become digitally active.
- The data we would likely generate by 2025 would reach 463 exabytes worldwide.
- Platforms like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft have stored a massive amount of information (1200 petabytes).
- Data processed by Electronic Arts daily is 50 terabytes.
Conclusion
So, how much data is created every minute? You can see that a lot of data is generated every minute and day. But then, knowing how much data we generate daily won’t have any meaning if we don’t harness it.
It is just like crude oil. Oil won’t have value if you don’t extract and process it. In other words, if we don’t harness the data generated daily, nothing will change. The data will remain of less value to us.
