Americans want to delete Instagram more than any other social media app, study finds

Even though Instagram has 2.35 billion users (at the time of writing this), it looks like we have a love-hate relationship with the app. Cybersecurity experts at VPN Pro recently did an interesting study examining which social media app people want to delete the most. According to the results, it’s Instagram. But other social media apps have rated high on this list, so let’s dive in and see the rest of the results.

Methodology

VPN Pro examined Google search data to discover which social media apps Americans wish to delete nationwide and in each state. They based the data on the aggregated average monthly volume for search terms frequently used by people who want to delete or deactivate each social media app in the country.

Results

According to VPN Pro, monthly searches for terms related to deleting Instagram reach 1.1 million, more than any other social media app. However, it’s worth noting that this app is the second with the number active monthly users (2.35 billion vs. 1.1 billion on TikTok, for example). I believe that’s something we should take into consideration. Instagram is the app that Americans want to delete the most in 21 states altogether. But as the study concludes, people along the West Coast. Those in California, Texas, New York, Florida, and Georgia are, respectively, most interested in deleting it.

Another Meta-owned app, Facebook, ranks close second, with an average of 1 million searches a month. This app has more than 3 billion active users according to Meta’s latest quarterly report, so it’s surpassed Instagram. According to the study, West Coast users want to delete Instagram the most, whereas Midwest folks wish to deactivate Facebook instead. Facebook is especially popular to delete in 29 states, mainly Midwestern ones, including Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

The third most unwanted app is Snapchat, an app that Americans wish to delete in a total of 47 states. It receives 269,235 average monthly searches in the United States for a combination of search terms related to deleting or deactivating the app, such as “how to delete Snapchat” and “deactivate Snapchat account.”

The top 10 social media apps that Americans want to delete are rounded out by Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube, WhatsApp, and Pinterest, respectively.

Comments

A spokesperson for Vpn Pro commented on the findings:

“Between the recent launch of Twitter’s new competitor, Threads, Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, and the era of TikTok in full force, social media usage has taken some unexpected turns in the last year alone. While it might be hard for some of us to imagine a world without social media, many Americans are opting to delete specific platforms, as highlighted in this research.”

I’d like to see the search results in relation to the number of monthly active users each of the platform has. Sure, we can google it and do the math if we’re really interested, but that’s still something I’d prefer seeing already done in the study itself. While the study is interesting on its own, I think this would make it more relevant and give us a more precise insight of the Americans’ attitude towards the most popular social media apps.

“It’s fascinating that the most popular Meta-based platforms, Instagram and Facebook, rank as the top two apps that Americans want to delete, which could be great news for Twitter-owner Elon Musk,” the spokesperson said. “However, with Mark Zuckerburg’s recent launch of Threads and Musk’s recent announcement of Twitter’s rebrand to ‘X’, it will be interesting to see how this ranking changes in the near future.”