Elon Musk’s $44 billion bid to buy Twitter has focused new attention on the high-profile social media platform, which was founded in 2006. Today, millions of Americans use Twitter to crack and comment news, to distribute official statements, organize campaigns and protests, or simply let their friends know what’s on their mind.
Here are 10 facts about Americans and Twitter, based on recent Pew Research Center surveys and other studies.
Social media, and Twitter in particular, has become ubiquitous in American life. This analysis uses data from several Pew Research Center surveys to provide insight into who uses Twitter and their experiences with the platform. It also includes the results of a Center analysis of Twitter user behavior and activities on the site.
All other surveys and findings referenced here—including each survey’s method, field dates, and sample size—are available through links in this analysis.
About one in five US adults (23%) say they use Twitter. The percentage of Americans using the platform has remained stable over the past few years and is similar to the share using Snapchat (25%) and WhatsApp (23%). But a much larger share of US adults use YouTube (81%), Facebook (69%) and Instagram (40%).
Democrats are more likely than Republicans to use Twitter. About a third of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (32%) report using Twitter, 15 percentage points more than the share of Republicans and Republicans who say the same (17%).
Also, American adults under 30 are more likely than older Americans to use Twitter. About 42% of adults ages 18 to 29 say they use it, compared to just 7% of those 65 and older — a 35-point difference.
A minority of Twitter users produce the vast majority of tweets. Among American adults who use Twitter, the top 25% of users by tweet volume produce 97% of all tweets, while the bottom 75% of users produce only 3%, according to an analysis conducted during a three-month period in 2021.
Infrequent and frequent tweeters tend to tweet in different ways. Replies to other users are the most common type of tweets from infrequent tweeters. They account for roughly half of their tweets (51%), compared to 30% of those sent by more frequent tweeters. In contrast, retweets of other posts account for almost half of all posts (46%) from the most frequent tweeters, compared to only 26% of those from the least active tweeters.
Democratic and Republican Twitter users differ in their views on the platform’s influence on democracy. Almost half of Twitter users who are Democrats or lean Democratic (47%) say Twitter is mostly good for American democracy, but only 17% of Republicans and Republican-leaning say the same. Republican Twitter users, for their part, are roughly twice as likely as Democratic users to say the site is bad for American democracy (60% vs. 28%).
About one in five adult Twitter users in the US have experienced harassing or abusive behavior on the platform, and a third say they see too much inaccurate or misleading information there. Most adult Twitter users have not experienced bullying or abuse on the site, but 17% say it has happened to them personally.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of Twitter users (91%) say they encounter at least some inaccurate or misleading information on the platform, and 33% say they encounter a lot of this type of content. Republican Twitter users are more likely than Democrats to say they come across a lot of inaccurate or misleading information (45% vs. 27%).
About a fifth of American adult Twitter users think no one sees their tweets. Most users assume that their tweets have a very limited audience: Most (67%) think that only a few people see their content, and 21% think NOBODY you see it.
However, more than half of Twitter users (54%) consider whether the content they post publicly on Twitter could be used against them in the future before doing something that might be visible to other people on the site. And comparable shares take into account who can see these things (53%) or whether that activity portrays them in a positive light to others (49%).
For some users, these concerns are not merely hypothetical. About one in five Twitter users (21%) say they’ve posted something on the site that they later regretted sharing.
Republican Twitter users are more likely than Democrats to say it’s a big problem that Twitter limits the visibility of certain posts or bans users from the platform. Overall, 31% of US users say that limiting Twitter’s visibility of certain posts is a big problem, and 25% say the same about banning users from the platform. However, Republican Twitter users are roughly 10 times more likely than Democrats to say that banning users from the platform is a big problem (61% vs. 6%) and more than three times more likely to say that banning users is a big problem (59% vs. 17%). One of the most high-profile people to be banned from the platform is former president Donald Trump.
When it comes to other perceived problems, about half of Twitter users say the presence of inaccurate or misleading information (53%) and harassment and abuse from other users (47%) are top problems, while 38% say same for the tone or civility of the discussions there. Party views are similar when it comes to how big a problem misinformation is and the tone or civility of discussions.
Most US Twitter news consumers say using the platform has increased their understanding of current events in the past year, but about a third say it has increased their stress levels. Overall, about seven in ten US adult Twitter users (69%) get news on the site. A majority of 57% of those who get news on Twitter say that using the platform has increased their understanding of current events, compared to 23% of other Twitter users.
Twitter news consumers are also more likely than other Twitter users to say that using the site has increased their knowledge of the lives of celebrities and public figures (39% vs. 22%) and how politically engaged they feel (37 % versus 15 %). However, Twitter news consumers are also more likely to report that it has increased their stress levels: 31% of Twitter news consumers say so, compared to 14% of other Twitter users.
Many Twitter account holders are unclear about their privacy settings. Among Twitter users who gave their handles to the Center and say their account is private or aren’t sure about their settings, 83% actually have a public profile.
Note: This is an update to a post originally published on August 2, 2019 and written by Adam Hughes and Stefan Wojcik.
Meltem Odabas is a computational social scientist focusing on data science at the Pew Research Center.
