Following the social media outage, new research suggests that Brits want to be rid of Instagram… permanently.
Instagram No Longer Flavour of the Month
As Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp were knocked offline due to outages, new research has revealed which social media accounts the UK most want to delete.
A new study from cybersecurity experts VPNOverview.com reveals that Instagram is the social media account that Brits are most keen to delete, with ‘how to delete Instagram account” receiving a quarter of a million searches each month – 3.6 million a year.
Decreasing in Popularity
It is no secret that Instagram is decreasing in popularity. With the advent of TikTok, Instagram seems to be becoming increasingly unpopular. Many are starting to recognise a toxic relationship with the app and actively trying to cut down on usage. Others are merely noting a shift towards sponsored ad and the predominance of influencers.
According to an article from the Spotlight earlier this year, a study by Tankovska revealed that despite Instagram’s annual growth rate in 2019 being 6.7%, this rate was expected to decrease to only 1.8% by 2023.
Not Just Instagram
However, it seems that it is not just Instagram that users are falling out of love with.
Facebook ranks second as the social media account people most want to delete, with ‘How to delete Facebook account” receiving over 60,000 searches a month.
Snapchat is next, with 49,500 monthly searches from people looking to delete their accounts. Twitter, TikTok and LinkedIn were also high on the list.
| “How to delete…” | Rank | Average number of monthly searches |
| Instagram account | 1 | 301,000 |
| Facebook account | 2 | 60,500 |
| Snapchat account | 3 | 49,500 |
| Twitter account | 4 | 12,000 |
| TikTok account | 5 | 4,400 |
| LinkedIn account | 6 | 3,600 |
| Youtube account | 7 | 2,400 |
A spokesperson for VPNOverview.com commented on the research:
“It’s fascinating to see – in the midst of a global Facebook and Instagram outage – which social media platforms people are already thinking about removing. While it might be impossible for some of us to imagine a world without social media, being literally unable to access our accounts might encourage us to look at our social media use, and how we can tweak it to improve our lives”.
