Korean Tweeters focus on select few: survey

More than half of Twitter users in Korea follow less than 10 people, a local survey released on Tuesday said.

According to the KBS Broadcast Research Institute’s online survey of 14,649 people in 16 cities and provinces, 5,022 of the respondents turned out to be Twitter users.

Of these users, 56.7 percent said they do not follow more than nine people. Only 6.1 percent said they follow more than 100. Users that follow 10 to 19 people made up 17.9 percent, while 8.4 percent followed 20 to 29 people.

Sixty-one percent of the surveyed users had less than nine followers. People with more than 100 followers accounted for 5.8 percent.

Chung Dong-hun, professor of media studies at Kwangwoon University noted that Twitter’s growing popularity in Korea owes much to its small number of heavy users and celebrities.

“Twitter is a social network service that’s mainly based on relationships,” he told The Korea Herald. “So, the heavy users or well-known figures tend to communicate with more people, while others don’t.”