Twitter users follow like-minded people: Study

Twitter users try to insulate themselves from the differing views and opinions on the site by following people who share their interests and beliefs, a study reveals.

Twitter users try to insulate themselves from the differing views and opinions on the site by following people who share their interests and beliefs, a study reveals.

Researchers from Louisiana State University suggest that Twitter is unwittingly building an 'ideological echo chamber'.

'Two users of Twitter might be exposed to very different content based on which accounts they choose to follow, while two people reading the local newspaper might read different stories but at the end of the day, it is the same content they are exposed to,' study co-author Brian Knight from Brown University was quoted as saying in a New York Times report.

As people rely more on social media for news, Twitter and Facebook are filtering what people see, based on their interests and shape their world view.

'As we move from a world in which traditional media outlets control the content, we receive to a world in which most of the content is coming from our friends, it's really important to understand who your friends are,' doctoral candidate in politics at New York University Pablo Barbera was quoted as saying.