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37 percent of social media users worn out by political content: survey

Xinhua, October 26, 2016 Adjust font size:

A study released on Tuesday found that many U.S. social media users are getting fed up with political content.

The Pew Research Center survey showed that 37 percent of the survey's respondents said they are "worn out" by the amount of political content they see on a social media service.

That is far more than the 20 percent who said they like seeing political posts and discussions on these platforms.

The survey comes with Twitter and Facebook increasingly used in political campaigns and playing an important role in social movements. Facebook reported 17.8 million people in the United States made 79.9 million likes, posts, comments and shares related to the third and final presidential debate.

However, just 35 percent of the respondents in the survey said they find political discussion on social media to be informative, while 59 percent said it is "stressful and frustrating."

"A substantial share of social media users feel these platforms are uniquely angry and disrespectful venues for engaging in political debate," the report said.

Many social media users get news and commentary in their feeds even when they are not looking for it, the report said.

Pew also polled Americans on how much politics they believe is online and how much they feel they themselves contribute to the volume of discussions of politics on Facebook and Twitter.

One-fourth of Facebook users said "a lot" of the posts they see on the website are related to politics, while roughly the same percentage of Twitter users agreed.

In comparison, 6 percent of Facebook users said "a lot" of what they post is related to politics, along with 8 percent of Twitter users.

The survey was conducted among 4,579 respondents between July 12 and Aug. 8 online and by mail. The margin of error was estimated at 2.4 percentage points. Endi