The use of social media platforms continued to grow last year across Irish society, but there was a decrease in the number of young people actively using such apps, according to new figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
Overall, social media usage rose by two percentage points, with 75 per cent of people in Ireland surveyed having used platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp in the three months prior to being surveyed by the CSO.
Social media use among young people, those aged 16 to 29, remains high at 88 per cent, but saw a seven percentage point decrease in the past year from a high of 95 per cent in 2024.
Young women were more likely to have actively used social media sites at 93 per cent, compared to just 81 per cent of young men.
RM Block
The figures were released as the Government examines options to restrict children and young people from accessing social media platforms.
They are part of the CSO’s latest Household Digital Consumer Behaviour survey. Carried out between April and June this year, the research examined the behaviour of people aged 16 and older around internet activities and usage.
The rapid growth in the number of internet users streaming films, series, or sports services has steadied. The use of services such as Netflix, Amazon and Disney+ saw marginal, two per cent growth to 71 per cent in 2025.
Unchanged at 68 per cent from 2024, the popularity of using online resources for health queries is still high.
The CSO introduced a question as to whether these users were seeking information about physical or mental health concerns, finding that women were considerably more likely to use the internet for physical health issues at 77 per cent to 55 per cent of men.
This disparity was even more pronounced with mental health queries. Of younger women, those aged between 16 to 29 years, nearly two-thirds, 65 per cent used the internet for mental health resources, against just 9 per cent of males of the same age.
The prevalence of internet banking has also reached new highs in Ireland as 94 per cent of people use services such as PayPal, Revolut and Apple Pay, an increase of seven percentage points on 2024.
The use of internet banking is also increasingly common among people aged 75 or older, with 71 per cent of men and 73 per cent of women in the age bracket using the service.
While it rose in popularity, it remains just short of the most common internet activity, email, used by 95 per cent of those surveyed by the CSO.
The popularity of generative artificial intelligence services, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, stood at 42 per cent of internet users in the three months before the survey. Younger males were the biggest users of the services at 72 per cent.
CSO social analysis statistician Maureen Delamere said people in Ireland are “online and relying on technology and digital services more than ever”.
“Overall, more than nine in ten (95 per cent) people aged 16 years and older used the internet within the previous three months,” Ms Delamere said, noting that just 5 per cent of respondents reported having never used the internet.
