During the 2012 it may have felt like 100% of the people you saw on Twitter and Facebook featured politically-oriented content the the actual number was far less. A new Pew Internet study shows that 39% of adults took part in some form of political activity on a social network.
The majority of the activity came in the form of liking or sharing political material (23% of all adults polled). Of all social networking specific users, 38% were active liking or sharing political material. The second most social activity to do with politics (35%) was to encourage others to vote. Social networks were leveraged heavily to promote specific opinions as well as 34% of all social users posted their own thoughts/comments.
Political expression on social networking sites was especially popular in younger demographics. 67% of 18-24 year olds engaged in some form of political postings nearly triple the overall sample size of 23%.
Social media also helped to mold options this election. 43% of social networking uses decided to learn more about a specific topic based off of something that they read on a social networking site. It didn’t stop there either. Of the polled audience 12% followed or friended a candidate as well.
For more information see the full report from Pew Internet.
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