As we continuously enter the digital world, most people depend on advanced technologies, smart devices, and the internet or mobile data.
Today, almost 7 billion people in the world are smartphone users, and about 64.4% of the world’s population are internet users, equivalent to approximately 5.16 billion people.
Among these figures, 4.76 billion were social media users.
Of those billions of people using their devices daily, I’m sure you want to know how much data is created every day in 2024.
Post Contents
How Much Data is Created Every Day in 2024?
Since billions of people own various devices and use social media, browsers, messaging apps, and streaming platforms daily, has it ever crossed your mind how much data is generated each and every day?
There is no definite amount, but according to some reports, the data created every day adds up to approximately 3.5 quintillion bytes.
This is equivalent to 10,000,000 blu-ray discs. Yes, you read that right, 10 million, or as giant as two Eiffel Towers.
With the growth of IoT worldwide, it is believed that the world now creates around 3.5 quintillion bytes of data every day.
This is not surprising since a person creates approximately 1.7 MB of data per second.
Global Data Created and Consumed
The amount of global data created and consumed spiked due to the growing demand brought by the strict lockdown policies during the COVID-19 pandemic.
More people worked from their homes, browsed their social media accounts often, watched more movies and series, played and streamed online games, and searched for daily news.
Based on Statista’s report, the global data created and consumed in 2018 was around 33 zettabytes, while more than 64 zettabytes in 2020.
It almost doubled the total amount. Zettabytes, known as ZB, is the second-biggest data storage unit of measurement, next to yottabytes (YB).
Amount of Global Data Created and Consumed
Let’s take a look at the amounts of global data created and consumed from 2010 to 2022:
- 2 zettabytes of global data were created and consumed in 2010
- 5 zettabytes of global data were created and consumed in 2011
- 6.5 zettabytes of global data were created and consumed in 2012
- 9 zettabytes of global data were created and consumed in 2013
- 12.5 zettabytes of global data were created and consumed in 2014
- 15.5 zettabytes of global data were created and consumed in 2015
- 18 zettabytes of global data were created and consumed in 2016
- 26 zettabytes of global data were created and consumed in 2017
- 33 zettabytes of global data were created and consumed in 2018
- 41 zettabytes of global data were created and consumed in 2019
- 64.2 zettabytes of global data were created and consumed in 2020
- 79 zettabytes of global data were created and consumed in 2021
- 97 zettabytes of global data were created and consumed in 2022
Amount of Global Data Creation in the Future
Data creation is forecasted to continuously increase in the next few years which can potentially exceed 180 zettabytes by the end of 2025.
Below are the forecasted amounts of global data from 2023 to 2025:
- 120 zettabytes of global data will be created and consumed by the end of 2023
- 147 zettabytes of global data will be created and consumed by the end of 2024
- 181 zettabytes of global data will be created and consumed by the end of 2025
Data Usage in Digital Activities
People use different amounts of data in every digital activity.
It can consume around 43 MB of data in an hour while playing an online game and 644 MB of data in an hour while watching a Netflix movie.
Here are some examples of digital activities with their estimated data usage:
- Watching videos on YouTube for an hour consumes an estimated 429 MB of data
- Watching on Netflix for an hour consumes an estimated 644 MB of data
- Streaming an HD movie for two hours consumes an estimated 4.2 GB of data
- Listening to 10 tracks on Spotify consumes an estimated 80 MB of data
- Playing an online game for an hour consumes an estimated 43 MB of data
- Downloading a photo on Shutterstock consumes an estimated 5 MB of data
- Creating 350,000 emails consumes an estimated 1 GB of data
Other Activities on Digital Platforms that Use Data
Below are other activities on different digital platforms that require data usage:
- 150,000 messages are sent and received in Facebook Messenger every minute
- 41,666,667 messages are sent on WhatsApp every minute
- 333 billion emails are sent on different email platforms every day
- 1,388,889 voice and video calls are made on different platforms every minute
- 147,000 photos are posted on Facebook every minute
- 527,760 photos are shared on Snapchat every minute
- 347,222 stories are posted on Instagram every minute
- 650 million tweets were posted on Twitter every day
- 404,444 hours are streamed on Netflix every minute
- 2.4 million searches are made on Google Search every minute
- 479,452 engagements on Reddit every minute
- 300,000 malware are sent to attack users every day
Conclusion
Everything we do online, whether we browse photos and videos on social media, communicate using messaging platforms, watch movies on streaming services, or search through various browsers, requires data consumption.
Facebook creates approximately four petabytes of data every day, equivalent to more than four million gigabytes.
No wonder why the world today creates an extensive amount of data – about 3.5 quintillion bytes of data per day.
