Americans want to delete Instagram more than any other app: report it

by James · March 8, 2023

There are many reasons why you might want to delete a popular app from your phone—and you’re far from alone.

According to an analysis of search trends by cybersecurity website VPNOverview, popular social media apps Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat garnered the most internet searches from people who wanted to delete those apps in the past six months.

More than 900,000 searches for how to “delete” or “deactivate” Instagram were made during that period, more than the top 30 app downloads in the country, VPNOverview said in a February report.

That’s more than double the number of searches to delete or deactivate Facebook, which was the second most searched app in the analysis, according to VPNOverview, with more than 385,000 searches over six months.

The report analyzed search volume for terms related to deleting or deactivating popular apps using data from keywordtool.io and web analytics firm Similarweb. These five apps appeared most frequently:

Instagram (900,120 searches)
Facebook (385,410)
Snapchat (217,400)
Twitter (92,490)
Telegram (24,819)

On the one hand, it stands to reason that most people would be interested in deleting Instagram and Facebook, both of which are owned by Meta, because many people already have them on their phones.

For example, Instagram was the second most downloaded app in 2022 with more than 548 million global downloads — behind only TikTok’s 672 million, according to BusinessofApps. The app is in no danger of disappearing anytime soon.

However, on Meta’s most popular platforms, user growth stagnated and engagement declined in 2022. And in recent years, polls have shown a growing distrust of popular social media platforms over issues such as misinformation, cyberbullying, phishing scams, privacy concerns and data mining.

Meta did not immediately respond to CNBC Make It’s request for comment.

Some users are also concerned about the impact of social media on the mental health of children and teenagers. Meta’s own leaked internal studies have revealed the negative effects that intensive use of Instagram and Facebook can have on young users.

And while the majority of teenagers today are willing to take a break from social media, they’re also mostly split on whether they could quit social media. Last year, 54% of teens surveyed by the Pew Center said it would be “difficult” to give up social media completely. 46 percent of respondents said it would be “easy”, of which 20 percent said it was “very easy”.

In the same survey, 62% of teenagers surveyed said they use Instagram. Only 32% said they use Facebook.

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