Does Facebook Rival Every Major Religion On Earth?

If you’ve ever thought that friends or family log into Facebook Inc FB religiously, you may not be far from the truth. Facebook just delivered a monster Q1 that included big revenue and earnings beats and some impressive user numbers.

In fact, Facebook’s latest numbers inspired the following tweet from Josh Brown:

“Facebook now has 1.65 billion users spending an average of 50 minutes a day on its platform. Rivals every major religion in Earth.”

Benzinga decided to take a look at just how true this statement actually is.

Facebook certainly rivals the “big four” global religions in size. The platform’s 1.6 billion users falls just shy of the number of global Christians (2.1 billion), but tops the number of Muslims (1.5 billion), Hindus (900 million) and Buddhists (376 million).

Related Link: Citi Stands Pat On Facebook, Still Buying The Stock

The amount of time that followers are supposed to devote to their religion every day varies based on the denomination and the individual, but here are some rough estimates.

The average American Christian spends about one hour per week, or 8.5 minutes per day, attending church, reading the Bible and praying.

Muslims must pray five times per day for a total of roughly 35 minutes. Typically, they also attend a mosque sermon at least once a week that can last another half hour. That averages out to about 40 minutes per day.

Hindus typically pray at least twice a day for 30 to 45 minutes.

Buddhists usually spend 20 to 40 minutes per day in meditation.

So generally speaking, the average follower of the four major global religions devotes anywhere between 8.5 and 45 minutes per day to worship, just shy of the 50 daily minutes that the average Facebook subscriber spends on the platform.

Praise Zuckerberg.

Disclosure: the author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.

Image credit: Robert Scbole, Flickr