A lot of people talk about politics on social media. Not a lot of people think that talking about politics on social media leads to a healthy discussion.
Pretty much no one thinks that social media improves our political discussions
Political discussions on social media are less respectful and more angry, a new study found.
Ethan Miller / Getty Images
Roughly 50 percent of social media users say that political discussions on sites like Facebook and Twitter are less respectful, more angry and less likely to lead to a resolution than political discussions that happen virtually anywhere else.
Only 5 percent of people thought social media discussions were more respectful, and just 6 percent thought they were less angry than other places people discuss politics.
Pew Research
More than a third of social media users (37 percent) say they are “worn out” by political content on social sites, nearly double the number of people (20 percent) who say they “like seeing” political content on Facebook or Twitter, according to new data from Pew Research.
Those numbers shouldn’t shock anyone who has had access to a television over the past 12 months — the election has been nearly impossible to miss and many of the headlines have been soul-crushing.
Sites like Facebook and Twitter have had heightened roles as well. Both sites streamed full, live coverage of each major party’s convention, and all three presidential debates. Plus, the presidential nominees are very active on Twitter, particularly Donald Trump, who routinely tweets stuff that’s outlandish and offensive. So that likely plays into how the public perceives social media in this year’s election.
All of this data came from Pew Research, which released a study Tuesday that looks at how politics are discussed on social media services. The results are based on information collected from more than 4,500 respondents this past summer.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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