Danes are addicted to social media

The Danes have the official status of being the nation in the EU with the highest use of social media.

This position is confirmed by a new study that shows that a full 94 percent of the population has a profile on at least one social media platform.

On average, more than half of the adult population – 57 percent – is active on three social media platforms, according to a population survey conducted by Analyse Danmark for IDA among just over 2,000 representatively selected Danes.

Facebook remains the absolute star and has a permanent place in 85 percent of Danes' online lives, while Instagram, Youtube and Snapchat come in next.

Digital community center

The vast majority indicate that they are on Facebook because of the social network, but almost half respond that they are – also – on Facebook to get important information from, for example, residents' associations, leisure activities and education.

And that's exactly what catches the eye of Jørn Guldberg, who is an IT security expert for IDA and sees a huge need for a secure European alternative where your personal data is not a commodity.

'Facebook is the Danes' digital community center, where all types of associations communicate with their members. But your personal data is vacuumed up and resold for all sorts of other purposes. You pay with your privacy to use Facebook, and that is deeply problematic. Therefore, neither associations nor public authorities should communicate on Facebook,' says Jørn Guldberg, who highlights the Danish Sports Association (DIF) as an example of an organization that takes the issue seriously.

Confrontation with culture

DIF recommended in the spring that both screens and social media be limited as much as possible both in the activity itself and in communication with the athletes, and that threads and groups in Snapchat or Facebook not be created to plan activities in the association.

'We have sleepwalked into the tech giants' web of algorithms, without thinking about how they exploit our personal data or create addiction for children and young people. It is high time that there is a showdown with that culture,' says Jørn Guldberg.

Goodbye to X

However, the study also shows a trend that more Danes have opted out of social media over the past two years. This applies in particular to X and TikTok.

Thus, 35 percent of X users say they have left the platform in the past two years. The same applies to 27 percent of TikTok users.

Jørn Guldberg sees this as a direct consequence of the fact that the two media have built up a bad reputation when it comes to data harvesting, ethical guidelines and moderation of cross-border content.

'Since Elon Musk took over Twitter and renamed it X, there has been free rein for extremist views and fake news. From being a solid content channel for opinion leaders and experts, X is today closely associated with Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and many Danes have a hard time liking them,' he says.

When it comes to TikTok, PET has repeatedly warned public employees against having the app installed on their work phones because the Chinese government probably has access to users' data and can carry out espionage.

'At the same time, several studies show that new users are quickly manipulated into a gloomy and self-destructive universe. The medium is not the innocent dance platform it was in the beginning,' says Jørn Guldberg.