Statistically, most of the tweets you see were posted by a relatively small group of people.
Comparing highly active and less active tweeters
About 22% of US adults are Twitter users. So 25% of that 22% = just 5.5% of the US adult population. The bulk of US Twitter activity is coming from just over 1 in 20 adults.
So Twitter is not the best place to get an accurate idea of what is on the minds of a representative cross-section of Americans. Hyperactive users can hijack public opinion by leaving the impression that an idea is far more popular or far more unpopular than it actually is. And because Twitter accounts are easy to get, a malevolent group can set up an army of bots to distort public opinion.
Anybody who spends all their time on Twitter just trying to spark outrage should not be followed. At best they’re engaged in a form of performance art, at worst it’s manipulation.
