Eurostat, the EU statistical office, has published its regional yearbook with a broad coverage of regional statistics, including Internet and social media usage in 2020.
The yearbook focuses on the EU regions, but as data are also available for the Nordic countries not in the EU – Norway and Iceland – this article covers regions from all five Nordic countries.
The regional division used means that Denmark and Finland are divided into five regions, Norway into seven and Sweden into eight, while Iceland is composed of just one. (Find more information about the regional division at the end.)
The Internet has become commonplace
In all but three Nordic regions, over 90 per cent of the population aged 16–74 used the Internet daily in 2020, as shown in Eurostat's map below (Figure 1). In the three Nordic regions that did not reach over 90 per cent, the proportion was almost as high: 87–88 per cent. In the Nordic capital city regions, Internet use among all respondents was almost universal, 95–98 per cent.
A fully Nordic top ten list
When Europe's regions are ranked according to the highest proportion of Internet users, the top ten list is fully Nordic. Iceland comes first, followed by the Nordic capital city regions in Norway, Finland, Denmark and Sweden and three more Norwegian and two Danish regions (Figure 2).
Icelanders and Norwegians diligent social media users
Social networking – that is, using social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok or Twitter – is one of the most common activities online. Among EU citizens, almost six of ten (57%) say that they participated in social networks in 2020 during the three months preceding the survey. This is up from 54 per cent in 2019.
Among the European regions, Iceland is again at the top, with 94 per cent saying they have used social media in the three months prior to the survey. Four Norwegian regions with 90–92 per cent follow suit (Figure 3).
While Internet usage was fairly even throughout the Nordic regions in 2020, there was a greater variation in social media usage, from 94 per cent in Iceland down to 67 per cent in the northern region of Finland. In all regions of Denmark, more than 80 per cent (83–86%) used social media, while in Finland, only the capital city region reached that level (82%). In other Finnish regions, the share of the population using social media varied from 67 to 76 per cent. The corresponding figures for the regions in Sweden were 68–78 per cent.
Explore Eurostat's regional statistics:
About the regional division
Eurostat's regional classification system NUTS (Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics) is designed to create comparable regions in terms of, for example, area and population size, for the purpose of regional analysis and policies. The system is based on a three-level hierarchy of regions – NUTS levels 1, 2 and 3 – from larger to smaller areas. Data above refer to NUTS level 2 regions.
About the Internet statistics
- The national statistical institutes within the EU, as well as candidate and EEA countries, carry out annual surveys on individual and household Internet usage and report to Eurostat. The statistics can therefore, in broad terms, be compared between countries.
- In Eurostat's reporting, comparisons are made primarily within the EU, but data for Norway and Iceland are available in the databases.
- The surveys are sample surveys of the population aged 16–74 years old.
- Data generally refer to the first quarter of the reference year, and hence, data refer mainly to the situation before the Covid-19 pandemic started.
National Internet statistics are available in Eurostat's database
Nordic Internet statistics are available in Nordicom's table database (filter Internet)
Eva Harrie