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Ireland’s Digital and Social Media Statistics 2018 »

From Generative AI technology that seems to defy all sorts of piercing scrutiny to produce impressively coherent creative work, immersive virtual reality (VR) shopping experiences to surprising social media revelations – expect your jaw to hit the floor as we unveil fascinating new digital advancements, slowly beginning to rear their heads from this year on.

So buckle up as we dive into some of the reigning technological trends and statistics to help shape our expectations for 2023.

2023 Digital and Social Media Statistics

Surprisingly, COVID-19 has not contributed to new internet users.

• Internet penetration in Ireland has actually reversed since 2017 and has remained stable at 92% since 2020. (Reuters, 2020, 2021, 2022)

At the same time, the number of Irish households with access to internet has increased to 94%. (CSO, 2022)

High internet consumption is no longer symbolic of poor impulse control but is rather a necessity as adults and children alike use the internet now for daily functions such as work, play, study and even to de-stress.

• 94% of internet users access the web daily. Out of which, a whopping 43% use it all the time or nearly all the time. (CSO, 2022)
• The European Commission has ranked Ireland’s level of digitalisation as one of the highest in the EU (8.5% relative annual growth). (European Commission, 2022)

We’ve officially stepped into the smartphone-dominant era.

• For the first time in Ireland, the smartphone has become the first device that consumers access for news. (Reuters, 2022)

First symptoms of VR supremacy?

• There is a 50% rise in VR penetration, with 11% now owning VR headsets in a new study. (Deloitte, 2022)
• 36% of Irish people use game consoles. (CSO, 2022)
• 65% know about the metaverse – a term that went mainstream only 12 months ago. (Deloitte, 2022)
• Omnichannel retail experiences are gaining importance worldwide as consumers experiment with VR and the metaverse. In a recent study, a surprisingly high percentage of respondents (32%) used VR in the last six months to shop for products/ NFTs and luxury items. (PwC, 2022)

So how are we spending such a large chunk of time online?

• Checking emails is now the number one online activity in Ireland. 91% of us do it. (CSO, 2022)

Can our days really be complete without work emails? Sigh.

• Next is finding information on goods and services (87%), followed by audio/video calls (85%) and reading online news (82%). (CSO, 2022)
• 82% of Irish females shopped online, compared to 80% of males. (CSO, 2022)
• 46% of us listen to a podcast on a monthly basis now (+5 percentage points from last year). (Reuters, 2022)

But what about social media?

• 76% of the eligible global population is now on social media. (Datareportal, 2022)
• The world witnesses an average of six new users registering on social media every single second. (Datareportal, 2022)
• In Ireland, WhatsApp is the most-used social app (70%), followed by YouTube (63%), Facebook (63%), Instagram (41%), Facebook Messenger (43%) and Twitter (27%). (Reuters, 2022)
• Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn all actually lost active users by around 5 percentage points last year, while TikTok enjoyed the highest growth (+6%), with 58% of its users accessing the app daily. (IPSOS, 2022)

And finally, how are Irish businesses adapting digitally?

• Nearly all Irish businesses (97%) have broadband access and conduct at least some operations digitally. (CS0, 2022)
• Ireland is the most common location for e-commerce sales, with more than one-third of Irish companies (35%) making sales to customers in Ireland. (CSO, 2022)
• One in five large companies (250+ employees) uses industrial or service robots. (CSO, 2022)

Exciting Social Media and Digital Launches in 2023

Unveiling the Metaverse

The metaverse aims to gradually integrate itself into our daily social media experience from 2023, influencing trends that will have consumers exploring VR, augmented reality (AR), avatars, virtual stores and NFTs – a whole new world!

• Ferrari released its 296 GTB model to the Fortnite community before making its physical debut.
• Bloomingdale’s launched a fully interactive virtual store during New York Fashion Week 2022.
• Starbucks is offering members what they call “a revolutionary Web3 (a decentralised, block-chain based system) experience” with the sale of NFT tokens that will unlock access to immersive coffee experiences.
• Nike has its own NIKELAND interactive world in the metaverse designed for visitors to play sports games and buy NFT sneakers and avatar accessories.

Multi-sensory Social Media

Talkwalker predicts multi-sensory media to trend in 2023. Multi-sensory media incorporate versatile content formats like audio, video, text and even fully-immersive experiences.

• Instagram has launched the option to add music to still images.
• Twitter has added a podcast page for its US users.
• Meta, of course, is focusing on investing in the metaverse.

Super Apps

Super Apps combine the functionalities of multiple apps like messaging, video and entertainment to produce rich experiences.

• TikTok has been adding multiple elements from various apps- like features from BeReal, carousels, stories and longer videos. It is also planning to enter the non-digital world.
• Meta has been modifying WhatsApp’s features to go beyond the traditional functional specifications of a messaging app, with community tools and payment features in selected regions.
• Elon Musk has characterised his purchase of Twitter as “an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.”

Short-form videos and TikTok

Short-form videos are touted to be the most influential social trend of 2023. HubSpot stresses that it is the most effective form of marketing, with the highest ROI.

Forbes, HubSpot, Mediatoolkit and PR Daily all expect TikTok to turbocharge its influence in 2023, while Hootsuite predicts that TikTok would finally overtake Facebook’s global influence and become the number-one social media platform in the world in 2023.

Synthetic Media

Perhaps the uncanniest of inventions, deep synthesis media have lawmakers scrambling to introduce effective regulations to mitigate its abuse. Today, anyone can use Generative AI tools to produce unregulated, creatively distinct textual, video and audio content at the click of a button, without any expense whatsoever.

Special Mention: Hyper-realistic Deepfakes

• UK media regulator Ofcom recently asked media networks to update their compliance policies with respect to creating deepfakes, citing “misinformation and disinformation” among other concerns.
• On the other side of the pond, hyper-realistic images of Donald Trump being arrested began to go viral on social media prior to his arraignment.

Special Mention: Chat GPT

Microsoft-back OpenAI’s generative AI chatbot Chat GPT can (and don’t hold your breath till the list completes)

• Populate LinkedIn profiles
• Write creatively-distinct articles
• Code in complex programming languages
• Create a video game from scratch
• Pick stock market portfolios
• Entertain humans with cracker jokes
• Imagine scenarios and even full-blown conversations that will never happen between people (to be fair, I do this every day without a fancy tech corp funding me)
• Design abstract graphic
• Develop catchy advertising slogans
• Even conceptualise entire businesses online!

How many days has it been?!

With Microsoft’s funding, Chat GPT has reached a million users faster than any leading tech enterprise in the past decade.

Google’s shares dropped by roughly 13% after its attempt to respond to OpenAI’s invention with its own Generative AI chatbot, Google Bard, did not seem to fare as well with critics.

The digital world is a dynamic realm, with an unrelenting capacity to self-transform. Be it social media or synthetic media, robots or an AI-powered marketing tool – your business can benefit from it. If trend forecasts are anything to go by – our lives are about to have a heady digital revamp – so should your brand.

Get in touch with Neworld to explore your brand’s potential in the online world.