From Special Correspondent

Daijiworld Media Network

Bengaluru, Mar 7: With social media dominating the public discourse, Twitter has become a powerful tool, especially for the youth and upwardly mobile people.

Twitter is about serving the public conversation, highlighting what’s happening in the world and enabling people to talk about it right now.

As part of its youth engagement initiative #PowerOf18, Twitter India unveiled new research findings on Thursday specific to the youth sentiment in Karnataka on social media and the elections.

Twitter is where people can serve the public conversation; 6 in 10 (60.5%) of the youth on Twitter in Karnataka surveyed will actively engage with and raise concerns to the government on issues that affect them or their community, versus 29.3% of those not on the platform. In addition, 61.6% of the youth in Karnataka on Twitter surveyed believe that they are contributing to the public debate by posting on Twitter, the study said.

More than half (51.7%) of the youth in Karnataka surveyed use Twitter to express their opinions and be heard, the study said and observed that the same percentage will 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 average 95% of Karnataka youth indicate that they would vote in the upcoming elections.

In comparison, Twitter users (96.5%) surveyed were more likely than those not on the platform (92.7%) to vote in the upcoming elections.

Over 80% of Karnataka’s 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 Karnataka youth surveyed rank social media platforms as the most important source for understanding what’s happening in India and around the world, compared to all other mediums including newspapers, news websites, TV and offline events.

This study is part of a larger nationwide survey conducted with 4,274 youth respondents from India between September and October 19 last year.

The survey methodology qualifies the respondents as minimally secondary literate, aged between 18 - 35 years old.

India is expected to have 34.33% share of youth (15 - 34 years old) in total population by 2020, according to the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation.

The #PowerOf18 campaign is aimed at encouraging more youth in India to participate in civic engagement, understand the significance of their right to vote and contribute to public debate on Twitter.

The campaign launch is marked by an emoji activated by the hashtag #PowerOf18 available now until June 2019.

Follow #PowerOf18 and @TwitterIndia to be a part of the conversation and community.