Why Twitter is different to the rest
Enrique Dans
Senior Advisor for Innovation and Digital Transformation at IE University. Changing education to change the world...
A recent study by Pew Research Center shows something very interesting: Twitter users differ significantly from the average American in that they are generally younger, better educated, wealthier, and more aware of what’s going on in the world.
The study shows that 10% of Twitter users create around 80% of tweets and that therefore, most users simply listen to what others say, but even so, they are better informed and with more balanced and plural points of view than users of other networks, where the echo chamber effect comes into play. Contrasting with the accusations that Twitter has become the realm of the far right, the place occupied by Donald Trump’s real and fake followers and where the (for the moment) president attacked the company over his lost followers, a new narrative emerges: that of people who use Twitter to stay informed from a range of sources, expanding their interests not only thanks to the tweets of their followers, but to other people’s retweets, thus making a healthier connection with the informative environment around them.
Many years ago I recommended my students to keep their Twitter account open to keep up to date on the topics that interest them. Over time, I saw how most of my students used Twitter anyway, with use falling off more recently. When, in 2015, I came across research in Sloan Management Review showing that Twitter users were exposed to a diverse network of opinions and were thus able to generate better ideas, I used it to back up my arguments, not just because the research is rigorous, but because it coincided with my own conclusions.
Twitter has many problems, but is willing to work to solve them. Its latest quarterly results showed an increase in turnover of 18% and an 11% increase in users, despite the fact that the company is eliminating around ten accounts every second, which requires a huge effort and commitment to quality and sustainable growth that other networks, clearly do not share.
In my opinion, Twitter is far and away the network with the best signal vs noise ratio. Sure, it has its defects, like everything, but it’s irreplaceable. If it didn’t exist, someone would have to invent it.
(En espa?ol, aquí)
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