Media & PR

Twitter users: young, metropolitan and angry about civil liberties – or rather, not

So writes today’s Guardian:

Britain’s 5.5 million Twitter users are younger than average members of the public, slightly more likely to vote Labour, and distinctly more liberal, according to a survey published today.

They are also more likely to live in London, less likely to live in the north of England, and marginally more likely to belong to a lower social class.

The YouGov poll may help to explain why libertarian campaigns appear to flourish on Twitter.

You can read the full story in The Guardian. Watch out when you do as it becomes clear that the evidence doesn’t quite fully stack up.

The margin of error on the Twitter user results is +/- 7 percentage points and that of non-Twitterers is +/- 2%. That means many of the comparisons in the piece stack up. But some don’t. Those about London, Conservative voting and social class all fall well within the margins of error and so the poll doesn’t actually tell us whether Twitter users are more or less likely to be Londoners, Conservatives or in the lower social class classifications.

2 responses to “Twitter users: young, metropolitan and angry about civil liberties – or rather, not”

  1. As you well know, Mark, margins of error are extremely complex mathematical issues and you really can’t expect journalists to understand all that scientific mumbo-jumbo. Good grief – next you’ll be telling us they should be able to understand graphs or averages.

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