Pew survey finds in US 6 in 10 users took break from Twitter last year
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San Francisco: A recent poll by the US-based Pew Research Centre states that six in ten Americans who used Twitter in the last 12 months claim they took a break from the service for a period of several weeks or more during that time.
According to a Pew survey done around five months after billionaire Elon Musk bought the platform for $44 billion, a quarter of those who used Twitter in the past year say they are not likely to use it in the future, even if the majority of them report taking a break from the service.
Women are more likely than men to indicate they had stopped using Twitter in the past year (69 per cent vs. 54 per cent) among current and recent users.
"Black users (67 per cent) are more likely than their White (60 per cent) or Hispanic (54 per cent) counterparts to say the same. There were not enough Asian American Twitter users to allow for a separate analysis," said the survey that came out late on Wednesday.
The findings came amid debates in the media and even questions posed by Musk himself about whether Twitter is "dying."
Since Musk acquired the platform, some celebrities have publicly announced their departures from the site and popular accounts have reported abnormally large gains and losses in followers, among other changes.
The survey also asked current and recent Twitter users how likely they are to use the platform a year from now.
"A plurality (40 per cent) say they are extremely or very likely to use the site in a year, and 35 per cent say they are somewhat likely to use it. But a quarter says they are not very or not at all likely to be on Twitter a year from now," the results showed.
The analysis also found partisan differences in users' plans to remain on Twitter.
Greater shares of current or recent Twitter users who are Democrats or Democratic-leaning say it is unlikely they will be on Twitter in a year compared with their GOP counterparts (29 per cent vs 20 per cent).
Current or recent users who are Republican or Republican-leaning, in turn, are more likely than Democrats to say it is likely they will use the site a year from now (45 per cent vs. 36 per cent).
"Republicans are also more likely than Democrats to say they are extremely likely to be on the site at that time," according to the survey.
With inputs from IANS
