92.5% of UP youth to vote in Lok Sabha poll: Twitter India
LUCKNOW: As part of its youth engagement initiative ‘Power of 18’, Twitter India unveils new research findings on youth sentiment in Uttar Pradesh (UP) and elections on social media, at the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, on Friday.
Panelists, Anshul Tewari, founder at Youth Ki Awaaz and actor Rithvik Dhanjani joined twitter at the Power of 18--college dialogue session. Both shared their perspective on what it means to turn 18 and the importance of voting in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
In addition, Hindi film actor Rajkummar Rao lends his voice to the Power of 18 online video series on Twitter India. Survey findings: Twitter is where people can serve the public conversation; more than half (55.1%) of the youth on Twitter in UP surveyed, will actively engage with and raise concerns to the government on issues that affect them or their community, versus 36.6% of those not on the platform.
In addition, 61.4% of the youth on Twitter in UP surveyed believe that they are contributing to the public debate by posting on the platform. More than half (54.5%) of the youth in UP use Twitter to express their opinions while 56.3% use Twitter to gather support for a cause or movement.
Across the board, the population in India is politically active and the survey finds on an average 92.5% of state youth would vote in the upcoming elections. In comparison, UP youth on Twitter (94.9%) surveyed were not on the platform (91.3%) to vote in the upcoming elections.
Over 80% of UP youth surveyed will turn to social media to find out what’s happening in India and around the world, according to the study’s findings. The rising importance of social media for information consumption is reinforced as Uttar Pradesh youth surveyed rank social media platforms as one of the most important sources for understanding what’s happening in India and around the world, ahead of TV as a medium. Newspapers rank as the top information source for UP youth.
This study is part of a nationwide survey conducted with 4,274 youth respondents from India between September 24 and October 19, 2018.
The survey methodology qualifies the respondents as minimally secondary literate, aged between 18 - 35 years old.