Most people you meet in everyday life — at work, in the neighborhood — are decent and normal. Even nice. But hit Twitter or watch the news, and you’d think we were all nuts and nasty.
[…]
Reality check: It turns out, you’re right. We dug into the data and found that, in fact, most Americans are friendly, donate time or money, and would help you shovel your snow. They are busy, normal and mostly silent.
- These aren’t the people with big Twitter followings or cable-news contracts — and they don’t try to pick fights at school board meetings.
- So the people who get the clicks and the coverage distort our true reality.
Three stats we find reassuring:
- 75% of people in the U.S. never tweet.
I’m pretty nice to most people unless they lie, hate, support violent or extreme perverts and people say they will do something but go back on their word.
For example, Lying Karen Le Roi is a person I think of.
Never tweeted, will never get a twitter account. That 75% is a really nice stat, because a lot of the people I know including some family are the nicest people to your face, but catch them on facebook and they can be utter beyatches. I am glad that it is such a minority, because my experience would have said that a lot of people are nice in real life or nice to your face, but total assholes when they think they are anonymous.