Tweet This – Twitter Not Valid as a Measure of Public Opinion –Dave’s Diary

Twitter posts may one day replace the more traditional public opinion polls—but not yet!

Tweets are often referenced by today’s crop of “journalists” as indicative of a real trends but a new report recently released from the Pew Research Center said that twitter is actually not a very good indicator of public opinion at all.

Pew say that's because only 16 percent of all U.S. adults use Twitter, and the makeup of users doesn't reflect the demographic makeup of the nation.

Twitter users tend to be younger, more educated and more affluent when compared to the nation as a whole. Additionally, Pew found in a report back in March that people were more likely to tweet negatively than positively, so that negative opinions get emphasized that might not accurately reflect what the nation as a whole thinks.