This is the conclusion of a study carried out by the Jiatong University of Beijing (China) that has analyzed the evolution of 6 million tweets worldwide .
The researchers wondered how the formation of public opinion works on Twitter with the large volume of tweets that occurs every day (about 500 million messages). To do this, they chose 6 million tweets at random; These messages were processed using an algorithm that analyzed and divided the opinions of the authors by topic or by type of device (Blackberry, iPhone, etc.). The results revealed that public opinion in this social environment tends to evolve very quickly and in the same way, in a short space of time, opinion also stabilizes, determining that once the most prevailing opinion is consolidated, it is very difficult to achieve a consensus .
But there is a short space of time, just before global opinions stabilize, where discordant voices can gain a foothold and try to stand out ; however, once public opinion is constant, it is difficult to change.
"Although Twitter users with minority views face overwhelming opposition, they are often not prone to change their views," says Fei Xiong, one of the study's authors.
The results of the research, which have been published in the magazine Chaos , also reveal that, in general, Twitter users are more likely to make an effort to change the opinions of others than to modify their own.
