A Rasmussen poll released Monday found that 61 percent of likely voters say social media platforms have had a negative impact on American politics.
The survey of 1,000 likely voters found that only seven percent say social media has been good for politics in the United States, while 28 percent consider it neither good nor bad.
While 61 percent of respondents say social media is bad for politics, only 33 percent say they rarely or never use Facebook or Twitter. Moreover, 41 percent say they use those social media platforms every day or nearly every day.
Among the regular users of social media, only 11 percent say they believe most things they read on those platforms, while 79 percent say they do not.
Rasmussen Reports asked likely voters about the impact of social media on politics in 2017 as well and found 51 percent believed social media was bad for politics. Hence, the current poll saw a ten percent increase in voters who view social media as negative for politics.
When political affiliation is a factor, the survey found Democrats use social media more often than Republicans and voters who are unaffiliated with a major political party.
Nevertheless, 60 percent of all three affiliation categories agree that social media has had a negative impact on American politics.
The poll found the heaviest users of social media are voters under 40. Among these younger voters, 37 percent say their political views are influenced by sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
Meanwhile, half of seniors say they rarely or never use social media.
According to Rasmussen, black Americans use social media more heavily than whites and other minority voters.
“Yet even among those who use social media every day or nearly every day, 60% believe it has had a bad political impact on the nation,” Rasmussen Reports notes.
A survey conducted in 2019 found 65 percent of voters said social media such as Facebook and Twitter make America a more divided nation.
The current survey was conducted October 14-15, 2020. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence.