Racial Differences in Twitter Use at College

A study of first-year college students conducted by researchers at Northwestern University and published in New Media & Society, found that 37 percent of blacks were using Twitter compared to 21 percent of whites.

Twitter is a real-time information network that allows users to monitor the “tweets” of friends, organizations, athletes, and celebrities. For example, you can follow JBHE on Twitter (@JBHEDotCom) and get instant updates when we publish news that may be of interest to you.

The authors of the study found that African-American college students were more likely than other college students to have an interest in celebrity and entertainment news and that many black students kept abreast of news developments in this area by using Twitter.

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