Source: IEEE Spectrum
See also:
AI Researchers Predict Automation of All Human Jobs in 125 Years
Robot Overlords: AI At Facebook, Amazon, Disney And Digital Transformation At GE, DBS, BNY Mellon
30 years ago today, Steve Jobs unveiled the Macintosh. More accurately, The Great Magician took it out of a bag and let it talk to us. The Macintosh, as I learned from first-hand experience in 1984, was a huge leap forward compared to the PCs of the time. But I couldn’t have written and published the previous words and shared a digitized version of Jobs’ performance so easily, to a potential audience of 2.5 billion people, without two other inventions, the Internet and the Web.
45 years ago this year (October 29, 1969), the first ARPANET (later to be known as the Internet) link was established between UCLA and SRI. 25 years ago this year (March 1989), Tim Berners-Lee circulated a proposal for “Mesh” (later to be known as the World Wide Web) to his management at CERN.
The Internet started as a network for linking research centers. The World Wide Web started as a way to share information among researchers at CERN. Both have expanded to touch today a third of the world’s population because they have been based on open standards. The Macintosh, while a breakthrough in human-computer interaction, was conceived as a closed system and did not break from the path established by its predecessors: It was a desktop/personal mainframe. One ideology was replaced by another, with very little (and very controlled) room for outside innovation. (To paraphrase Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan, the big brother minions in Apple’s “1984” Super Bowl ad remind one of the people in Apple stores today).
This is not a criticism of Jobs, nor is it a complete dismissal of closed systems. It may well be that the only way for his (and his team’s) design genius to succeed was by keeping complete ownership of their proprietary innovations. But the truly breakthrough products they gave us—the iPod (and iTunes), and especially the iPhone (and “smartphones”)—were highly dependent on the availability and popularity of an open platform for sharing information, based on the Internet and the Web.
Creating a closed and proprietary system has been the business model of choice for many great inventors and some of the greatest inventions of the computer age. That’s where we were headed towards in the early 1990s: The establishment of global proprietary networks owned by a few computer and telecommunications companies, whether old (IBM, AT&T) or new (AOL). Tim Berners-Lee’s invention and CERN’s decision to offer it to the world for free in 1993 changed the course of this proprietary march, giving a new—and much expanded—life to the Internet (itself a response to proprietary systems that did not inter-communicate) and establishing a new, open platform, for a seemingly infinite number of applications and services.
As Bob Metcalfe told me in 2009: “Tim Berners-Lee invented the URL, HTTP, and HTML standards… three adequate standards that, when used together, ignited the explosive growth of the Web… What this has demonstrated is the efficacy of the layered architecture of the Internet. The Web demonstrates how powerful that is, both by being layered on top of things that were invented 17 years before, and by giving rise to amazing new functions in the following decades.”
Metcalfe also touched on the power and potential of an open platform: “Tim Berners-Lee tells this joke, which I hasten to retell because it’s so good. He was introduced at a conference as the inventor of the World Wide Web. As often happens when someone is introduced that way, there are at least three people in the audience who want to fight about that, because they invented it or a friend of theirs invented it. Someone said, ‘You didn’t. You can’t have invented it. There’s just not enough time in the day for you to have typed in all that information.’ That poor schlemiel completely missed the point that Tim didn’t create the World Wide Web. He created the mechanism by which many, many people could create the World Wide Web.”
“All that information” was what the Web gave us (and what was also on the mind of one of the Internet’s many parents, J.C.R. Licklider, who envisioned it as a giant library). But this information comes in the form of ones and zeros, it is digital information. In 2007, when Jobs introduced the iPhone, 94% of storage capacity in the world was digital, a complete reversal from 1986, when 99.2% of all storage capacity was analog. The Web was the glue and the catalyst that would speed up the spread of digitization to all analog devices and channels for the creation, communications, and consumption of information. It has been breaking down, one by one, proprietary and closed systems with the force of its ones and zeros.
Metcalfe’s comments were first published in ON magazine which I created and published for my employer at the time, EMC Corporation. For a special issue (PDF) commemorating the 20th anniversary of the invention of the Web, we asked some 20 members of the Inforati how the Web has changed their and our lives and what it will look like in the future. Here’s a sample of their answers:
Guy Kawasaki: “With the Web, I’ve become a lot more digital… I have gone from three or four meetings a day to zero meetings per day… Truly the best will be when there is a 3-D hologram of Guy giving a speech. You can pass your hand through him. That’s ultimate.”
Chris Brogan: “We look at the Web as this set of tools that allow people to try any idea without a whole lot of expense… Anyone can start anything with very little money, and then it’s just a meritocracy in terms of winning the attention wars.”
Tim O’Reilly: “This next stage of the Web is being driven by devices other than computers. Our phones have six or seven sensors. The applications that are coming will take data from our devices and the data that is being built up in these big user-contributed databases and mash them together in new kinds of services.”
John Seely Brown: “When I ran Xerox PARC, I had access to one of the world’s best intellectual infrastructures: 250 researchers, probably another 50 craftspeople, and six reference librarians all in the same building. Then one day to go cold turkey—when I did my first retirement—was a complete shock. But with the Web, in a year or two, I had managed to hone a new kind of intellectual infrastructure that in many ways matched what I already had. That’s obviously the power of the Web, the power to connect and interact at a distance.”
Jimmy Wales: “One of the things I would like to see in the future is large-scale, collaborative video projects. Imagine what the expense would be with traditional methods if you wanted to do a documentary film where you go to 90 different countries… with the Web, a large community online could easily make that happen.”
Paul Saffo: “I love that story of when Tim Berners-Lee took his proposal to his boss, who scribbled on it, ‘Sounds exciting, though a little vague.’ But Tim was allowed to do it. I’m alarmed because at this moment in time, I don’t think there are any institutions our there where people are still allowed to think so big.”
Dany Levy (founder of DailyCandy): “With the Web, everything comes so easily. I wonder about the future and the human ability to research and to seek and to find, which is really an important skill. I wonder, will human beings lose their ability to navigate?”
Howard Rheingold: “The Web allows people to do things together that they weren’t allowed to do before. But… I think we are in danger of drowning in a sea of misinformation, disinformation, spam, porn, urban legends, and hoaxes.”
Paul Graham: “[With the Web] you don’t just have to use whatever information is local. You can ship information to anyone anywhere. The key is to have the right filter. This is often what startups make.”
How many startups have flourished on the basis of the truly great products Apple has brought to the world? And how many startups and grown-up companies today are entirely based on an idea first flashed out in a modest proposal 25 years ago? And there is no end in sight for the expanding membership in the latter camp, now also increasingly including the analogs of the world. All businesses, all governments, all non-profits, all activities are being eaten by ones and zeros. Tim Berners-Lee has unleashed an open, ever-expanding system for the digitization of everything.
We also interviewed Berners-Lee in 2009. He said that the Web has “changed in the last few years faster than it changed before, and it is crazy to for us to imagine this acceleration will suddenly stop.” He pointed out the ongoing tendency to lock what we do with computers in a proprietary jail: “…there are aspects of the online world that are still fairly ‘pre-Web.’ Social networking sites, for example, are still siloed; you can’t share your information from one site with a contact on another site.” But he remained both realistic and optimistic, the hallmarks of an entrepreneur: “The Web, after all, is just a tool…. What you see on it reflects humanity—or at least the 20 percent of humanity that currently has access to the Web… No one owns the World Wide Web, no one has a copyright for it, and no one collects royalties from it. It belongs to humanity, and when it comes to humanity, I’m tremendously optimistic.”
[Originally published on Forbes.com]
We looked at all still-private unicorns since 2011 and charted them based on when they first joined the unicorn club. While initially the chart shows unicorns being created at a relatively calm pace, the rhythm accelerates noticeably in late 2013 (right around the time Aileen Lee wrote her famous post coining the term unicorn in November 2013). Since then, there has been an explosion in unicorn creation, with over 60 new unicorns in 2015 alone.
See also The Unicorn List (updated in real-time)
Lotsa data in this Infographic about data growth
Data scientists are data junkies—when they see a new data set they are just naturally excited and can’t wait to explore.
Mingsheng Hong is Chief Data Scientist at Hadapt, a Boston-based startup that offers an analytical platform that integrates structured and unstructured data in one cloud-optimized system. Before joining Hadapt, Mingsheng was Field CTO for Vertica. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Cornell and a BSc in Computer Science from Fudan University. Mingsheng is president of NECINA and is active in St. Baldrick’s Foundation, a volunteer-driven charity that funds research to find cures for childhood cancers. I talked to Mingsheng just before he shaved his head, a visual indicator and act of solidarity expected from successful St. Baldrick’s fundraisers.
As a graduate student, were you thinking of an academic career?
At Cornell, I explored both academic and private industry career tracks. I love research and innovation, and discovered my passion for explaining ideas to people from various backgrounds and getting them excited about these ideas. While that aligns with a more academic track, in the end I decided the private sector was a better fit for me. I’m driven by the challenge of taking an idea and carrying it end-to-end, from idea to product development to sales. During graduate school, I had the opportunity to visit Microsoft for a few summers, and I got a lot of exposure to database R&D and came away with a good feel for the industry. My research work there was commercialized in SQL Server 2008 and 2012, which was very exciting. Continue reading
“One of my biggest challenges,” Keith Collins told me recently, “is helping SAS understand how to communicate to IT organizations. We present workloads which look odd and different. IT does not know how to have an SLA (Service Level Agreement) around them. We take all of the compute and I/O capacity that they can give us.”
SAS, the largest independent vendor in the business intelligence market, used to be a prime example of “shadow IT,” the purchasing of information technology tools by business users without the knowledge and approval of the central IT organization. But this is changing in the era of big data. The collection and analysis of data are becoming a very large part of many business activities and the IT organization is asked to provide support, even leadership, in tying together these disparate efforts.
Collins is SVP and CTO at SAS, where he has spent almost 30 years, helping the company grow with the market through a number of phases (and buzzwords)—statistical analysis, decision-support, data mining, knowledge and risk management, business intelligence, and business analytics. Now SAS is helping its customers, including CIOs and their IT teams, address the challenges of big data. Collins has seen this movie before: “People are all hyped up about Hadoop. But what is it, really? It is big and wide record sizes, big block sizes, designed specifically for high-volume, sequential processing. Just like a SAS data set in 1968… The only difference between a SAS data set and Hadoop is that now the disks are cheap enough that you can do replication.” The following is an edited transcript of our conversation.
Gil Press: Indeed, many people talk about Hadoop as a replacement for tape.
Keith Collins: We love that people get that as a pattern now, because it really helps them understand SAS. So it is a really good time for us to have the conversation with IT about it. But they are still struggling. They see it as “what is my next big data repository?” They do not see it as “this is my next big way to answer questions.”
The Internet started as a network for linking research centers. The World Wide Web started as a way to share information among researchers at CERN. Both have expanded to touch today a third of the world’s population because they have been based on open standards.
Creating a closed and proprietary system has been the business model of choice for many great inventors and some of the greatest inventions of the computer age. That’s where we were headed towards in the early 1990s: The establishment of global proprietary networks owned by a few computer and telecommunications companies, whether old (IBM, AT&T) or new (AOL). Tim Berners-Lee’s invention and CERN’s decision to offer it to the world for free in 1993 changed the course of this proprietary march, giving a new—and much expanded—life to the Internet (itself a response to proprietary systems that did not inter-communicate) and establishing a new, open platform, for a seemingly infinite number of applications and services.
As Bob Metcalfe told me in 2009: “Tim Berners-Lee invented the URL, HTTP, and HTML standards… three adequate standards that, when used together, ignited the explosive growth of the Web… What this has demonstrated is the efficacy of the layered architecture of the Internet. The Web demonstrates how powerful that is, both by being layered on top of things that were invented 17 years before, and by giving rise to amazing new functions in the following decades.”
Metcalfe also touched on the power and potential of an open platform: “Tim Berners-Lee tells this joke, which I hasten to retell because it’s so good. He was introduced at a conference as the inventor of the World Wide Web. As often happens when someone is introduced that way, there are at least three people in the audience who want to fight about that, because they invented it or a friend of theirs invented it. Someone said, ‘You didn’t. You can’t have invented it. There’s just not enough time in the day for you to have typed in all that information.’ That poor schlemiel completely missed the point that Tim didn’t create the World Wide Web. He created the mechanism by which many, many people could create the World Wide Web.”
“All that information” was what the Web gave us (and what was also on the mind of one of the Internet’s many parents, J.C.R. Licklider, who envisioned it as a giant library). But this information comes in the form of ones and zeros, it is digital information. In 2007, 94% of storage capacity in the world was digital, a complete reversal from 1986, when 99.2% of all storage capacity was analog. The Web was the glue and the catalyst that would speed up the spread of digitization to all analog devices and channels for the creation, communications, and consumption of information. It has been breaking down, one by one, proprietary and closed systems with the force of its ones and zeros.
Metcalfe’s comments were first published in ON magazine which I created and published for my employer at the time, EMC Corporation. For a special issue (PDF) commemorating the 20th anniversary of the invention of the Web, we asked some 20 members of the Inforati how the Web has changed their and our lives and what it will look like in the future. Here’s a sample of their answers:
Guy Kawasaki: “With the Web, I’ve become a lot more digital… I have gone from three or four meetings a day to zero meetings per day… Truly the best will be when there is a 3-D hologram of Guy giving a speech. You can pass your hand through him. That’s ultimate.”
Chris Brogan: “We look at the Web as this set of tools that allow people to try any idea without a whole lot of expense… Anyone can start anything with very little money, and then it’s just a meritocracy in terms of winning the attention wars.”
Tim O’Reilly: “This next stage of the Web is being driven by devices other than computers. Our phones have six or seven sensors. The applications that are coming will take data from our devices and the data that is being built up in these big user-contributed databases and mash them together in new kinds of services.”
John Seely Brown: “When I ran Xerox PARC, I had access to one of the world’s best intellectual infrastructures: 250 researchers, probably another 50 craftspeople, and six reference librarians all in the same building. Then one day to go cold turkey—when I did my first retirement—was a complete shock. But with the Web, in a year or two, I had managed to hone a new kind of intellectual infrastructure that in many ways matched what I already had. That’s obviously the power of the Web, the power to connect and interact at a distance.”
Jimmy Wales: “One of the things I would like to see in the future is large-scale, collaborative video projects. Imagine what the expense would be with traditional methods if you wanted to do a documentary film where you go to 90 different countries… with the Web, a large community online could easily make that happen.”
Paul Saffo: “I love that story of when Tim Berners-Lee took his proposal to his boss, who scribbled on it, ‘Sounds exciting, though a little vague.’ But Tim was allowed to do it. I’m alarmed because at this moment in time, I don’t think there are any institutions our there where people are still allowed to think so big.”
Dany Levy (founder of DailyCandy): “With the Web, everything comes so easily. I wonder about the future and the human ability to research and to seek and to find, which is really an important skill. I wonder, will human beings lose their ability to navigate?”
Howard Rheingold: “The Web allows people to do things together that they weren’t allowed to do before. But… I think we are in danger of drowning in a sea of misinformation, disinformation, spam, porn, urban legends, and hoaxes.”
Paul Graham: “[With the Web] you don’t just have to use whatever information is local. You can ship information to anyone anywhere. The key is to have the right filter. This is often what startups make.”
How many startups and grown-up companies today are entirely based on an idea first flashed out in a modest proposal 25 years ago? And there is no end in sight for the expanding membership in this club, now also increasingly including the analogs of the world. All businesses, all governments, all non-profits, all activities are being eaten by ones and zeros. Tim Berners-Lee has unleashed an open, ever-expanding system for the digitization of everything.
We also interviewed Berners-Lee in 2009. He said that the Web has “changed in the last few years faster than it changed before, and it is crazy to for us to imagine this acceleration will suddenly stop.” He pointed out the ongoing tendency to lock what we do with computers in a proprietary jail: “…there are aspects of the online world that are still fairly ‘pre-Web.’ Social networking sites, for example, are still siloed; you can’t share your information from one site with a contact on another site.” But he remained both realistic and optimistic, the hallmarks of an entrepreneur: “The Web, after all, is just a tool…. What you see on it reflects humanity—or at least the 20 percent of humanity that currently has access to the Web… No one owns the World Wide Web, no one has a copyright for it, and no one collects royalties from it. It belongs to humanity, and when it comes to humanity, I’m tremendously optimistic.”
The Pew Research Center is marking the 25th anniversary of the Web in a series of reports. Berners-Lee says in a press release issued today by the World Wide Web Consortium: “I hope this anniversary will spark a global conversation about our need to defend principles that have made the Web successful, and to unlock the Web’s untapped potential. I believe we can build a Web that truly is for everyone: one that is accessible to all, from any device, and one that empowers all of us to achieve our dignity, rights and potential as humans.”
See also Berners-Lee post on Google’s official blog: “…today is a day to celebrate. But it’s also an occasion to think, discuss—and do. Key decisions on the governance and future of the Internet are looming, and it’s vital for all of us to speak up for the web’s future. How can we ensure that the other 60 percent around the world who are not connected get online fast? How can we make sure that the web supports all languages and cultures, not just the dominant ones? How do we build consensus around open standards to link the coming Internet of Things? Will we allow others to package and restrict our online experience, or will we protect the magic of the open web and the power it gives us to say, discover, and create anything? How can we build systems of checks and balances to hold the groups that can spy on the net accountable to the public? These are some of my questions—what are yours?”
Sexting refers to the process of sending sexually explicit text messages, images, or videos to someone using their smartphone, desktop, etc. The practice of sexting is generally considered taboo but the numbers and sexting statistics in the digital world completely say otherwise since 8 out of 10 adults have reported to have sexted. Nowadays, AI Sex apps are becoming popular, too.
Around 88% of Americans aged 18 and older have stated being engaged in sexting at least once in their life. In this article, we will provide insight into Sexting statistics in 2024 and explain how common sexting is among people.
The practice of sexting has become quite common among the adults aged 18 and above and sexting isn’t considered as a taboo among the people anymore. Around 88% of American adults have reported having sexted in their lifetime and 82.20% reported sexting within the last year itself.
Sexting is a form of communication between romantic partners to increase intimacy and connection and strengthen their relationship. 73.9% of American adults have admitted to sending sexual text messages within a committed relationship.
There has been a constant growth in the percentage of users involved in sexting from 2000 to 2023. As of 2000, adults aged 19 years and above shared a sext by 5.6% where 2.7% of users have sent a sext and 10.3% received a sext. Meanwhile, in 2023, the numbers took a massive turn as the percentage of sending a sext reached 76.9% and 87.9% received a sext from others. Even though the number of sent and received sexts has increased significantly over the years, especially since 2015, the number of shared sexts has remained low over the years.
Below we have mentioned a detailed table showcasing the number of sent, received, and shared text among Americans from 2000 to 2023:
Year | Sent sext | Received sext | Shared sext |
2000 | 2.7% | 10.3% | 5.6% |
2001 | 4.5% | 13.7% | 6.9% |
2002 | 5.4% | 15% | 6.6% |
2003 | 6.1% | 17% | 6.1% |
2004 | 7% | 18.7% | 6.4% |
2005 | 7.1% | 18.2% | 6.2% |
2006 | 9.4% | 23.9% | 8.1% |
2007 | 11% | 28.9% | 9.8% |
2008 | 8.5% | 23.5% | 8% |
2009 | 8.4% | 28.1% | 9.5% |
2010 | 14.6% | 48.8% | 16.6% |
2011 | 16% | 49.4% | 16.8% |
2012 | 22.1% | 63.4% | 16.8% |
2013 | 21.2% | 57.8% | 25.8% |
2014 | 14.3% | 33.8% | 15.4% |
2015 | 24.7% | 52.4% | 24.3% |
2016 | 39.4% | 81% | 23.5% |
2017 | 45.6% | 87.4% | 26.1% |
2018 | 49.8% | 91.6% | 20% |
2019 | 44.9% | 78% | 15.5% |
2020 | 57.1% | 79.1% | 18.7% |
2021 | 63% | 79.6% | 18.8% |
2022 | 68.3% | 82.1% | 19% |
2023 | 76.9% | 87.9% | 18.2% |
Based on a survey conducted in 2022 of online users in the United States, it was revealed that Millennials were the generation with the largest number of adults engaging who have sent sexually explicit messages or images 37% followed by Gen Z in the second position by 20% and Generation X by 19%. Baby Boomers were ranked last in the list by 5%.
Below, we have mentioned a table showcasing the share of respondents in sexting based on generation in 2022.
Generation | Share of respondents |
Gen Z | 20% |
Millennials | 37% |
Generation X | 19% |
Baby Boomers | 5% |
Sexting is highly common among adults aged 18 and older. Today, most married couples or people in committed relationships consider sexting as a form of digital communication to improve their relationships. Let’s take a look at some of the top sexting statistics among adults:
An online survey was conducted with 870 heterosexual adult participants ranging between the ages of 18 to 82 regarding sexting. It was revealed through this survey that around 88% of U.S Adults have sexted (sent or received sexually explicit messages) at least once in their life along with 82% claiming they had done so last year.
The survey also further revealed that about 74% of participants stated they performed sexting with their partner in a committed relationship. While 43% claimed sexting with a partner in a casual relationship and 12% had sexted someone in a cheating relationship. In addition, the survey conducted also stated that 96% of the participants “endorse” it.
Sexting is no longer considered a taboo among the audience, and many individuals in romantic relationships consider it a common form of communication with their partners. 39% of American adults in romantic relationships have said they have exchanged sexually explicit messages with their partners as they claim it helps strengthen their relationship and increase intimacy and connection between the couple.
It is no surprise that a significant amount of college-going students have been involved in sending sexually explicit messages to others. Advanced technology and the accessibility of smartphones among the young audience have increased the possibility of individuals engaging in this activity. Currently, 34% of college students have reported being involved in sexting.
Today, sexting has become a common practice among smartphone users. Nearly 1 in 5 Americans who own a smartphone have been engaged in sexting activity, sharing intimate text messages or explicit images with another person based on a new survey. The age group that has the highest number of individuals sexting is 18 to 34-year-old male users at 32% and 35 to 44-year-old female users at 25%.
Sexting is not only common among the younger audience but smartphone users aged 55 and above have also been involved in sending or receiving sexual messages or images on their smartphones. According to a survey, 1 in 10 smartphone users aged 55 and above have sexted at least once in their life. 30% of the parents who have kids below the age of 18 have sexted.
Around 29% of American married heterosexual couples have reported to have engaged in sexual conversations with their spouses via text messages through their smartphones. Meanwhile, 12% of those heterosexual couples have revealed sending nude images to their partners at some point in time.
Sexual talks through text messages | Nude images |
29% | 12% |
Overall, sexting is less common among married couples in comparison to adults in committed relationships. One of the primary reasons behind this could be age as a large section of married individuals are older and less likely to engage in showcasing intimacy through text messages.
Not only adults, but sexting is also a common practice among teenagers aged between 12 to 17. According to reports, 1 in 4 American teenagers have stated they have been involved in sexting. Let’s take a look at the top sexting statistics among teenagers to understand the impact of sexting among the younger audience.
Surprisingly, sexting is not an unfamiliar activity among teenagers, especially in the digital world where most teens already own a smartphone and have access to a strong internet connection. In 2000, the percentage of teens that had sent a sext was 1.9%, while the percentage that received a sext was 9.4, and the shared sext was 5.1%. However, with each passing year, the practice has become increasingly common among the younger audience. In 2023, the share of respondents who have sent sexts was 26.5%, the received sext reached 38.2%, and the shared sext percentage extended to 13.0%.
Here is a breakdown of the share of teenagers who have sent sexts, received sexts, and shared text from 2000 to 2023:
Among teens (11-18) | Sent sext | Received sext | Shared sext |
2000 | 1.9% | 9.4% | 5.1% |
2001 | 3.2% | 9.8% | 3.8% |
2002 | 3.6% | 10.0% | 4.4% |
2003 | 3.8% | 10.6% | 3.8% |
2004 | 4.1% | 11.0% | 3.7% |
2005 | 4.7% | 12.1% | 4.1% |
2006 | 5.2% | 13.3% | 4.5% |
2007 | 5.8% | 15.2% | 5.2% |
2008 | 6.5% | 18.1% | 6.2% |
2009 | 7% | 23.4% | 8% |
2010 | 7.7% | 25.7% | 8.7% |
2011 | 8.4% | 26.0% | 8.8% |
2012 | 9.2% | 26.4% | 12% |
2013 | 10.1% | 27.5% | 12.3% |
2014 | 11.9% | 28.2% | 12.8% |
2015 | 13.7% | 29.1% | 13.5% |
2016 | 14.6% | 30.0% | 13.8% |
2017 | 16.3% | 31.2% | 14.5% |
2018 | 17.8% | 32.7% | 11.1% |
2019 | 18.7% | 32.5% | 11.1% |
2020 | 20.4% | 34.4% | 11.7% |
2021 | 22.5% | 34.6% | 11.8% |
2022 | 24.4% | 37.3% | 12.7% |
2023 | 26.5% | 38.2% | 13.0% |
According to a study by American high school and middle school students with over 5500 students aged between 12 to 17 years 13% have reported sending explicit text messages to others while 18.5% of students have reported receiving a sexually explicit message.
Sent Sext | Received Sext |
13% | 18.5% |
Sexting is a common practice among teenagers as well. According to a study by the Journal of the American Medical Association stated that every 1 in 4 American teenagers have claimed to send a sexually explicit image or text message. Although experts claim sexting is an emerging and common part of sexual development among teenagers it’s important to note that sexting is still considered a felony in 6 states in the US including Georgia, Florida, and Utah. Meanwhile, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Nevada consider sexting a violation, imposing fines, counseling, and community service.
According to a survey conducted by Cybersurvey, it was revealed that around 78% of young individuals have tried sexting before and they say they didn’t find any bad consequences in it. Even though nothing bad has turned out for the young audience, the chances of future consequences are still pretty high.
In today’s age, everyone has access to smartphones and the internet including minors. The internet has opened gates for various social media platforms and has raised concerns about various age-inappropriate behaviors and activities such as Sexting. A large section of minors might not think of sexting as an issue or major concern. Still, in reality, there are various risks associated with sexting such as the sharing of images and messages to third persons without consent, causing privacy violations.
According to a report by DoSomething.org, it was revealed that a large number of teenage girls have been engaged in sexting. It also revealed that 40% of the teenage girls claimed that they had sexted before as a joke.
It also revealed that about 17% of the sext recipients shared the images and texts with others while about 55% shared them with multiple people. Young people might not consider sharing images and texts with others as a concern initially; however, it can cause major issues in the future for the sender and affect their reputation.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s office, there were more than 7,000 reports of sextortion involving minors seen by law enforcement agencies in 2022 which resulted in 3,000 who were primarily boys. Few cases ever witnessed victims committing suicide.
The sextortion schemes majorly occur in online platforms where people utilize social media platforms to communicate with young audiences and gain explicit content such as photos and videos from them for financial benefit. Predators often create fake IDs and target minors by becoming overly friendly to gain their trust.
Sexting is a common practice performed among adults at a large scale to overcome relationship challenges between couples and enhance intimacy. Based on the above statistics and surveys conducted by experts it is clear that the number of people engaging in sexting is rising and accepting sexually explicit conversations in the digital form. Although it is common among adults it’s quite a risky activity when it comes to teenagers and should be avoided by anyone below the age of 18 as it causes various risky concerns such as sharing of explicit images or videos of teens without consent.
Loneliness is an unwelcoming feeling caused by a lack of companionship. Nearly, 1 in 4 adults experience loneliness worldwide. Although many people do not recognize loneliness as a serious concern, it’s important to know its effects can be extreme and wide-ranging. Around 52% of people in the United States are lonely, with young adults aged 18 to 24 being the loneliest. In this article, we will look at loneliness statistics worldwide in 2024 and the latest trends to understand the behavior and risks associated with lonely people. Many people are turning to technology solutions like the AI Girlfriend app or Sexting AI Platforms to combat feelings of loneliness.
A global survey conducted in 2021 revealed that 33% of individuals worldwide feel lonely. Brazil is the leading country with 50% of people feeling lonely often regularly, while 28% of people hardly or never feel lonely. Turkey is ranked second in the list with 46% of people experiencing loneliness and India is in the third position with 43% of people experiencing loneliness. The survey also revealed that the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, and Russia were among the countries with the highest share of people who didn’t feel lonely.
Here is a breakdown of the countries with the highest number of respondents feeling lonely among adults:
Countries | Often/Always feel lonely/ Some of the times | Hardly/Never feel lonely |
Brazil | 50% | 28% |
Turkey | 46% | 32% |
India | 43% | 27% |
Saudi Arabia | 43% | 37% |
Italy | 41% | 29% |
South Africa | 40% | 28% |
Malaysia | 39% | 21% |
South Korea | 38% | 28% |
Chile | 38% | 37% |
Peru | 37% | 35% |
France | 36% | 39% |
Argentina | 35% | 38% |
Mexico | 34% | 40% |
Great Britain | 34% | 39% |
Global Average | 33% | 37% |
Canada | 31% | 36% |
United States | 31% | 41% |
Singapore | 30% | 36% |
Australia | 30% | 42% |
Hungary | 29% | 49% |
Belgium | 28% | 38% |
Spain | 27% | 42% |
Germany | 26% | 50% |
China | 26% | 27% |
Sweden | 25% | 42% |
Russia | 25% | 49% |
Poland | 23% | 38% |
Japan | 16% | 48% |
Netherlands | 15% | 55% |
Source: Statista
Share of individuals worldwide reporting feelings of loneliness in 2022
A survey was conducted in 2022 in 16 countries to understand the loneliness among people based on age group. It was revealed that young adults aged 18 to 24 were most likely to feel lonely by 59% and reported negative effects on wellbeing from feelings of loneliness. Age groups 25 to 34 were the second highest share of respondents that experienced loneliness. Surprisingly, older adults aged 65 and above had the lowest share of respondents experiencing loneliness, at 22%.
Below, we have mentioned a table showcasing the negative effects of well-being by loneliness reported by people in 2022:
Age Group | Share of respondents |
18 to 24 | 59% |
25 to 34 | 54% |
35 to 44 | 47% |
45 to 54 | 39% |
55 to 64 | 32% |
65 and older | 22% |
Source: Statista
The percentage reporting loneliness men and women face is pretty much the same. According to a survey, 24% of men and women have reported feeling extremely lonely globally. Although, there are countries where the rate of self-reported loneliness is much higher for women in comparison to men.
Below, we have mentioned a table showcasing loneliness reported by people based on Gender:
Gender | Very/Fairly lonely | A little lonely | Not at all lonely |
Men | 24% | 27% | 49% |
Women | 24% | 27% | 49% |
Although the statistics between men and women are relatively equal regarding loneliness. It is stated that men are a little more likely to report feeling lonely compared to women. Meanwhile, some of the circumstances reported by women for feeling loneliness are as follows:
A survey conducted across 142 countries revealed that around 24% of people aged 15 and above reported feeling very lonely or fairly lonely upon asking, “How lonely do you feel?”
The share of respondents with the highest percentage of loneliness was surprisingly young adults between the ages of 19 and 29 (27%). Meanwhile, the older individuals were reportedly less lonely than the young audience. The lowest percentage of respondents experiencing loneliness was those between 65 and above. The survey conducted was an excellent reminder that loneliness is not an issue caused by aging and it can affect anyone regardless of a person’s age.
Here is a breakdown of the loneliness statistics based on Age group:
Age Group | Very/Fairly lonely | A little lonely | Not at all lonely |
15 to 18 | 25% | 30% | 45% |
19 to 29 | 27% | 30% | 43% |
30 to 44 | 25% | 27% | 48% |
45 to 64 | 22% | 25% | 53% |
65 and above | 17% | 25% | 57% |
The study, “The Global State of Social Connections,” was conducted by Gallup and Meta to understand the loneliness faced by people. The global results indicate that young adults aged 19 to 29 are the largest age group, experiencing loneliness by 27%, followed by teenagers aged 15 to 18 and adults 30 to 44 years old, who experience equal levels of loneliness by 25%. Apparently, older adults 65 and above have the lowest ratio in terms of loneliness (17%). 57% of old adults do not feel lonely at all.
Percent of U.S. adults who are lonely, shown as demographics:
Race can also play a primary role in unique ways that can make a person feel lonely. Reports suggest that racial minorities can often lead to a person feeling lonely significantly. Here are some of the loneliness statistics by race:
It’s highly important to address loneliness faced by people across all different aspects including racial groups to highlight essential needs and challenges faced by the people. By recognizing the differences and discrimination people face, we can work towards creating a more inclusive and supportive space for all communities.
Income can play a significant role in a person’s life and influence loneliness at a large scale. Reports suggest that people who earn more are more likely to spend time alone and experience loneliness. However, many good-earning individuals don’t feel lonely daily despite spending most of their time working and less socializing with close ones.
Instead, individuals with lower incomes are reported to be lonely compared to people with higher incomes, regardless of socializing more. 10% of people earning less than $40,000 yearly are likely to feel lonely most days, while 5% report feeling lonely all the time.
People earning $80,000 or higher yearly are less likely to feel lonely as only 3% report feeling lonely.
Overall, income does play a crucial role in determining whether a person is feeling lonely or not.
A Poll was conducted during the pandemic by KFF Health Tracking to study the negative mental health impacts of adults and it was found that households with children are more likely to experience loneliness compared to non-parents in general. In addition, it was also revealed that mothers were more likely to experience mental health issues and loneliness compared to fathers. Below, we have mentioned statistics showcasing loneliness faced by parents and non-parents:
There is no surprise that family relationships can have a major impact on people experiencing loneliness. People who deal with loneliness are less likely to share or discuss their emotions and feelings with others or go for support from their family members or close people.
According to research, people suffering from poor physical or mental health have shown more signs of experiencing loneliness in their lives. It doesn’t state that one issue is a reason for another but instead, it suggests that there are associations between physical and mental health with loneliness.
Loneliness can cause a considerable change in the employee’s behavior such as lower productivity, decline in performance, lack of engagement with others, and more. Data showed that lonely employees are twice as likely to issue sick leave compared at work to non-lonely adults. The report also suggests that lonely employees are 5 times more likely to miss work due to stress issues than non-lonely people. They are also three times more likely to admit they are less productive than other employees.
In the digital age, as loneliness prevails among various age groups, many turn to the internet for connection. One prevalent activity is sexting, which can be a double-edged sword. While it may provide a temporary feeling of connection and intimacy, it’s crucial to understand its implications fully.
With advancing technology, artificial intelligence offers new ways to combat loneliness. The concept of an AI girlfriend, which simulates emotional and conversational interactions, is gaining popularity. This technology aims to provide companionship without the complexities of human relationships.
The percentage of individuals experiencing loneliness is pretty high with nearly 1 in 4 young adults worldwide feeling lonely. Although anyone can experience loneliness regardless of their age group, various aspects such as demographics, physical health, mental health, financial status, and more can have a significant role in whether a person is feeling lonely or not. Above we have mentioned top statistics on loneliness to provide you with a better understanding of its impact and challenges.
TikTok is currently one of the most popular social media platforms worldwide with over 1.7 billion users as of 2023. This short video-sharing tool gained massive popularity in 2020 peaking at approximately 313.5 million downloads during the first quarter.
TikTok was initially launched in 2016 for the Chinese audience but later on, Bytedance decided to roll the app to a wider audience by launching the app in various other countries including the United States, which is today the largest TikTok audience with 143.4 million users.
In this article, we are going to take an in-depth look at TikTok Statistics as of 2023 and talk about the total number of users globally, the largest age group, popular categories, and much more.
Also Read: Everything You Need to Know about TikTok Ban in the U.S
Launch Date | September 2016 (China), August 2018 (Worldwide release) |
Headquarters | Beijing, China |
Total languages available in | 40 languages |
Owner | ByteDance |
Industry | Social Networking |
In 2023, TikTok counted approximately 1.9 billion users globally. TikTok witnessed massive popularity in 2020 rising from 652.5 million in 2019 to 1,035 million in 2020. Here is a breakdown of the total number of TikTok users worldwide from 2018 to 2027.
Year | TikTok Users |
2027 | 2,249 million |
2026 | 2,198 million |
2025 | 2,136 million |
2024 | 2,051 million |
2023 | 1,922 million |
2022 | 1,719 million |
2021 | 1,407 million |
2020 | 1,035 million |
2019 | 652.5 million |
2018 | 347.1 million |
Source: Statista
The United States is the leading country with highest TikTok user count of 143.4 million, followed by Indonesia who has a total count of 106.52 million as of October 2023.
Country Name | TikTok User |
United States | 143.4 million |
Indonesia | 106.52 million |
Brazil | 94.96 million |
Mexico | 68.89 million |
Vietnam | 62.61 million |
Russian Federation | 59.12 million |
Pakistan | 48.12 million |
Philippines | 39.48 million |
Thailand | 38.08 million |
Source: Statista
The short-form video-sharing application TikTok is highly popular among the younger generation. The age group with the highest number of TikTok users ranges between 18 to 34. Below is a table showcasing the TikTok’s user base depending on the Age group:
Age Group | User Percentage |
18 to 24 | 37.3% |
25 to 34 | 32.9% |
35 to 44 | 15.7% |
45 to 54 | 8.3% |
55+ | 5.8% |
TikTok contains a pretty equal ratio when it comes to the distribution of users by Gender. As of October 2023, approximately 49.2% of TikTok users worldwide were women. While the male users were approximately 50.8% of the total globally. (Statista)
Now that we are aware that 49.2% of TikTok users are women and 50.8% are male, let’s take a deeper look at the usage of TikTok based on their Age Group and Gender. Here is a table providing an entire breakdown of the total number of TikTok users based on their Age and Gender.
Age Group | Female | Male |
18 to 24 | 18.2% | 18% |
24 to 34 | 15.2% | 16.9% |
35 to 44 | 7.9% | 8.6% |
45 to 54 | 4.4% | 4.3% |
55+ | 3.4% | 3% |
Source: Statista
As of October 2023, the age of 18 to 24 was found as the age group with the highest amount of TikTok audience worldwide. A total of 18.2% of women and 18% of the men in the platform audience were between the ages of 18 to 24. The second highest age group was 24 to 34 with 15.2% female audience and 16.9% male audience.
According to TikTok statistics, “Entertainment” is the most popular category in the short-video sharing platform worldwide. The Entertainment hashtag has a total of 535 billion hashtag views on TikTok.
The second most popular category on TikTok is “Dance” with 181 Billion hashtag views. Below is a table showcasing the overview of some of the most popular categories on TikTok:
Category | Popularity by Hashtag Search |
Entertainment | 535 Billion |
Dance | 181 Billion |
Pranks | 79 Billion |
Fitness/Sports | 57 Billion |
Home reno/D.I.Y. | 39 Billion |
Beauty/skincare | 33 Billion |
TikTok has an engagement rate of 17.96 for Micro (users with less than 15K followers) which is much higher compared to Instagram’s 3.86% and YouTube’s 1.63%. Here is a table showcasing the engagement rate of different types of influencers on TikTok in comparison to Instagram and YouTube:
Influencer Type | TikTok | YouTube | |
Micro (less than 15K followers) | 17.96% | 3.86% | 1.63% |
Regular(15k-50k followers) | 9.75% | 2.39% | 0.51% |
Rising(50k-100k followers) | 8.37% | 1.87% | 0.46% |
Mid(100k-500k followers) | 6.67% | 1.62% | 0.43% |
Macro (500k – 1 mil. followers) | 6.20% | 1.36% | 0.44% |
Mega (Over 1 mil. followers) | 4.96% | 1.21% | 0.37% |
Source: Upfluence
TikTok was named the second social media app that crossed 3 billion all-time downloads. It was reported that there were more than 770 million TikTok app downloads during the first three quarters of 2023. Let’s take a look at some of the additional facts related to TikTok downloads:
Here is a complete breakdown of the total number of TikTok downloads over the years.
Year | Total number downloads |
2023 (Till the Q3) | 770 million |
2022 | 879.2 million |
2021 | 656 million |
2020 | 850 million |
2019 | 693 million |
2018 | 657 million |
2017 | 132 million |
Source: Statista
As social media continues to evolve, platforms like TikTok not only shape entertainment trends but also influence tech applications in personal communication. Understanding this intersection can provide insights into user engagement and preferences across different digital environments. For a deeper dive into how AI is transforming personal interactions online, particularly in private communications, explore our discussion on the use of AI sexting chatbots for sex chat here.
TikTok is currently one of the most popular social media platforms worldwide with more than 1.7 billion users. This short video-sharing platform is expected to witness more growth in coming years and is expected to reach 2,249 million by 2027 according to Statista.
TikTok is an excellent platform for anyone who wants to promote their brand online considering its excellent engagement rate. We hope this article has helped you gain data about TikTok, its downloads, popular categories, and much more.
For a comprehensive overview of another visual-centric social media platform, check out our detailed article on Instagram Statistics.