A recent Pew Internet study on how people are addressing politics in their social media interactions revealed some interesting points.
First of all, the study revealed that 74% of Internet users identify themselves as liberal. 70% identified as moderate. And, 60% identified as conservative.
The research concentrated on those persons who identified themselves politically. Some of those people said that they had received material from their friends on social networking sites that was political in nature. Among those people, the following discoveries were made:
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38% of social networking site users have discovered through their friends’ postings that their political beliefs were different than they thought
10% of SNS users have blocked, unfriended, or hidden someone on the site because that person posted too frequently about political subjects
9% of SNS users have blocked, unfriended, or hidden someone on the site because they posted something about politics or issues that they disagreed with or found offensive
8% of SNS users have blocked, unfriended, or hidden someone on the site because they argued about political issues on the site with the user or someone the user knows
5% of SNS users have blocked, unfriended, or hidden someone on the site because they posted something about politics that the user worried would offend other friends
4% of SNS users have blocked, unfriended, or hidden someone on the site because they disagreed with something the user posted about politics
82% of SNS users have not taken any steps to ignore or disconnect from someone whose views are different – or have not encountered any views that would prompt such a move.
67% of those who blocked, unfriended, or hid someone on a social networking site did it to a distant friend or acquaintance
31% of those who blocked, unfriended, or hid someone on a social networking site did it to someone they had never met in person
31% of those who blocked, unfriended, or hid someone on a social networking site did it to a close personal friend
21% of those who blocked, unfriended, or hid someone on a social networking site did it to a coworker
18% of those who blocked, unfriended, or hid someone on a social networking site did it to a member of their family
47% of SNS users have hit the “like” button in response to political comments or material posted by someone else.
38% of SNS users have posted positive comments in response to a political post or status update from someone else. Democratic users of SNS (48%) are much more likely to have done this than Republicans (33%) and Independents (37%).
16% have friended or followed someone because that person shared the user’s political views.
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