Hungary most social media savvy country in Central and Eastern Europe

Budapest, Hungary – Hungarians are the most social media savvy nation in Central and Eastern Europe, and among the top ones in the EU as a whole.

Hungary most social media-savvy country in Central and Eastern Europe

According to Eurostat, around 65% of Hungarians (aged 16 to 74) participated in social media networks in 2018, a much higher level than the EU average and its regional neighbours – thus confirming previous estimates that positioned Hungary as one of the most media-savvy nations in Europe.

The top spot however, was taken by people in Denmark (79%), followed by Belgium (73%), Sweden and the U.K. (70%), as well as people from Cyprus, Malta (69%), Finland (67%) and the Netherlands (66%). The share of social media users was below 50% in only three European countries: France (42%), Italy (46%) and Slovenia (49%).

Internet users in Hungary appear much more prone to take part in social media activity than their Visegrad neighbours, topping Slovakia (60%), the Czech Republic (56%) and Poland (50%).

More generally speaking, e-habits of Central European nations widely vary from one another, as a previous EU study suggested.

Young Czechs among most frequent users

Tied with Denmark and Croatia, the Czech Republic however reported the highest share of social media users among younger people aged 16 to 24 years old (97%) – especially with the rise of Instagram as an increasingly popular network in recent years.

Hungary (94%), Slovakia (93%) and Poland (91%) aren’t far behind, and above the EU average of 88% among young people.

In every Central European country, a small minority of older people aged 65 to 74 actively participated in social media networks activity: Hungary still came first in Central Europe at 18%, followed by Slovakia (12%), the Czech Republic (11%) and Poland (10%).

The data was released by the EU’s statistical office to mark World Social Media Day on June 30.