Twitter usage in Nepal

i

Twitter Usage In Nepal

(Brief Analysis of Tweeting Trends)

In partial fulfillment of the requirement for Research Methodology

In Bachelor’s Degree of Science (B.Sc.), 2072

Submitted By

Abhishek Khanal

TU Registration No: 5-2-37-16-2012

Symbol No: 5371118

College Roll No: 269/069

Surendra Kandel

TU Registration No: 5-2-37-498-2012

Symbol No: 5371186

College Roll No: 431/069

Submitted To

Department of Statistics

Tri-Chandra Multiple Campus

Ghantaghar, Kathmandu

March, 2015

ii

Letter of Declaration

We hereby declare to all the concerned institution that this report is a product of our own

research work and all other sources of material used in this research are duly acknowledged.

This work is submitted to Department of Statistics, Tri Chandra Multiple Campus, for the

partial fulfillment of the requirement for Research Methodology in Bachelor’s Degree of

Science.

……………………….. ……………………….

Abhishek Khanal Surendra Kandel

[email protected] [email protected]

Tri Chandra Multiple Campus Tri Chandra Multiple Campus

Ghantaghar, Kathmandu. Ghantaghar, Kathmandu.

iii

Tribhuvan University

Institute of Science and Technology




Letter of Recommendation

This is to certify that Mr. Abhishek Khanal and Mr. Surendra Kandel have prepared the

report entitled “Twitter Usage In Nepal: Brief Analysis of Tweeting Trends” under my

guidance and supervision. They have successfully completed the course and the report is in

the form as required by the department.

I forward this report for final evaluation and acceptance to the evaluation committee.

……………………

Ram P. Simkhada




Date:

iv

Tribhuvan University

Institute of Science and Technology




Letter of approval

This project report entitled “Twitter Usage In Nepal: Brief Analysis of Tweeting Trends”

submitted by Mr. Abhishek Khanal and Mr. Surendra Kandel has been carried out under

our supervision. The entire work is based on the results of their research work and has not

been submitted for any other degree and organization to the best of our knowledge. We

recommend this project work to be accepted for the partial fulfillment of the requirement for

Research Methodology in Bachelor’s Degree of Science (B. Sc.), 2072.

Date:

…………………………

External Examiner

…………………………..

Teacher In-Charge

v

Abstract

Twitter is an online social networking site where users post 140 character tweet about things

happening in their lives and things they think is interesting, funny or useful. Due to growing

service of cheap internet in Nepal, Nepali twitter users are also growing in number. The

specific objectives of this study was to analyze the tweeting trends of Nepali twitter users.

The study has analyzed the demographic of Nepali twitter users as well as their tweeting

trends. It was found that majority of users are males and of 18-37 age group. The study also

reveals that most popular topics to tweet are social causes, political issues and sports.

Keywords: Social networking site, tweet, trends

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Table of Contents

Cover Page………………………………………………………………………......................i

Letter of Declaration…………………………………………………………………………..ii

Letter of Recommendation……………………………………………………………………iii

Letter of Approval………………………………………………………………………….....iv

Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………..v

Table of contents…………………………………………………….………………………..vi

Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………..vii

List of tables and graphs……………………………………………………………………..viii

1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………1

a. Background of the study…………………………………………………………1

b. Objectives of the study…………………………………………………………...1

c. Limitations of the study………………………………………………………….1

2. Literature Review………………………………………………………………………...2

3. Research Problem and Methodology……………………………………………………2

a. Research Questions………………………………………………………………2

b. Study Methodology………………………………………………………………2

4. Results and Interpretation……………………………………………………………….3

a. General Characteristics………………………………………………………….3

b. Tweeting Habit…………………………………………………………………...7

5. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….10

6. Recommendation for future area of research…………………………………………10

References……………………………………………………………………………………11

Appendix……………………………………………………………………………………..12

vii

Acknowledgements

This report has come to fruition only through the help and insight of a great many people

to whom we are deeply grateful. Our sincere gratitude goes to Mr. Ram Prasad Simkhada

for his constant guidance and support.

Similarly, we would like to express our sincere thanks to Mr. Ujjwal Acharya and Centre

for Media Research-Nepal (CMRN) for providing support and previous research paper.

We dedicate our final, and most important, words of appreciation to the people who

selflessly gave their time to fill up the survey form.

viii

List of Figure, Tables and Graphs

Figure 1: Conceptual Framework

Table 1: Distributions of respondents by sex.

Graph 1: Sex wise distribution

Graph 2: Age wise distribution

Table 2: Age-Sex structure

Graph 3: Relationship Status

Graph 4: Educational Status

Table 3: Occupational Status

Graph 5: Duration of twitter use

Graph 6: Frequency of Use

Graph 7: Frequency of Daily Use

Graph 8: Mobile Users

Table 4: Popular topics to tweet

1

1. Introduction

1.a Background of the study

Social networking sites are used by billions of people worldwide. Social networking sites are

“Web based services that allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile within

a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view

and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within a system” (boyd &

Ellison, 2008).Social networking sites are websites that allow users to make public profiles and

exchange information with users of same website.

Twitter is a popular social networking site in which users post 140 character updates, called

tweets, about the things they want to share. People use twitter for various reason, some use it

to get newsfeed, some use it as microblog where they update their followers about their life

and some use it to chat with their friends. “Twitter is the most popular micro-blog tool among

other existing equivalents and has been featured extensively in the public media; for example

it has been used by political campaigns, news organizations, and for business

communications.” (Zhao & Rosson, 2009)

According to (Anil, 2014), There are around three million twitter users in Nepal. Due to

availability of cheap and fast mobile internet and the spread of 3G phones, this number is

growing day by day. Popular Nepali celebrities and politicians have started to join Twitter and

engage in discussions with their followers. According to a survey (Acharya, 2013) among

Twitter users in Nepal 84 percent believe celebrities and politicians can benefit on the platform.

Nepali Twitter users tweet anything from usual ramblings to profound political commentaries

and anything of national and global importance. Nepali Twitter community has become a venue

to start discussions and source of breaking news.

1.b Objectives of the study

The overall goal of the proposed study is to assess the tweeting habit of twitter users of Nepal.

The following are the specific objectives:

To study and analyse the demographic information of Nepali twitter users.

To identify the tweeting habits of Nepali twitter users.

To find out the frequency of using Twitter.

1.c Limitations of the study

The study will be limited to the active respondents only.

The study will be limited to certain demographic variables.

The study is based on a case study of selected sample population. So the findings

cannot be generalized to the whole Nepali twitter users.

2

2. Literature Review

Federation of Nepali Journalists in their social media survey among their members (FNJ,

2012) , studied the purpose of using social media. The results of the survey found that about

half of the respondents use Twitter for personal use. Their study showed that around 10

percent respondents use Twitter like micro-blogging to connect with fellow journalists.

(Acharya, 2013) In his paper entitled ‘Twitter Users of Nepal’ studied the demographic

information of Nepali Twitter users. The results of the survey found that majority of

respondents were males (87%).His study showed 86% of the Twitter users were between 20

to 35 years old. The findings of his study shows that 27% of Twitter users were employed or

freelancing professionals. His study revealed that three out of four Twitter users use both

Nepali and English language while tweeting. The findings of his study shows that most

popular topic to tweet were: social issues (44%), interesting news (42%), political (37%),

issues related to profession (26%) and media issues (23%).His study shows 89 % of

respondents believed that Twitter is a strong medium of communication.

3. Research Problem and Methodology

3. a Research Questions

We tried to study demographic information and tweeting habits of Nepali Twitter Users. To

collect demographic information, we choose five variables: sex, age group, marital status,

educational status and occupation. For sex variable we assigned three values: Male, Female

and Other. Similarly for age group we assigned nine values and so on. For full questionnaire

refer Appendix.

To study non demographic information i.e. tweeting habit, we choose variables such as

Duration of Twitter usage, Frequency and tweeting method. For full questionnaire refer

Appendix.

3. b Study Methodology

For the survey of the primary data, questionnaire method was adopted. For that an online

questionnaire was prepared on the basis of the objective of the proposed study using Google

Forms (https://docs.google.com/forms) and the form was shared in Twitter. From 2/8/2015 to

2/13/2015, total 109 responses were received. Among those 103 were valid responses.

https://docs.google.com/forms

3

Fig 1: Conceptual Framework

.

4. Results and interpretation

This section deals about characteristics of respondents and analyses the available information.

4. a General Characteristics:

A total of 103 twitter users filled up the questionnaire. The respondents’ characteristics by

sex is shown in the table and pie chart below. Majority of respondents were Male 90(87%),

compared to Female 13 (13%).

Twitter User

Socio Economic Variables:

•Educational Status

•Occupation

Tweeting Variables:

•Duration Of Twittter Use

•Frequency of Use

•Mode of Use

Tweeting Trends

Demographic Variables:

•Age

•Sex

•Relationship Status

4

Table 1: Distributions of respondents by sex.

Source: Online survey, 2015

Graph 1: Sex wise distribution


The age structure of all respondents is shown in bar diagram below. Majority of respondents

falls under 28-32 years age group (33%). From given bar diagram it is clear that active twitter

user fall under 18-37 years old age group.

87%

13%

Sex wise distribution

Male Female

Sex No of respondents

Male 90

Female 13

5

Graph 2: Age wise distribution


Similarly age sex composition of respondents is analysed and displayed in table below:

Table 2: Age-Sex structure

Age group

(in years)

Male Female Total

No. % No. % No. %

Under 18 3 3.3 0 0.0 3 2.9

18-22 16 17.8 5 38.4 21 20.4

23-27 21 23.4 4 30.8 25 24.2

28-32 31 34.4 3 23.1 34 33.0

33-37 12 13.3 0 0.0 12 11.7

38-42 6 6.7 0 0.0 6 5.9

43-47 1 1.1 1 7.7 2 1.9

Total 90 100.0 13 100.0 103 100.0


0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Under18

years

18-22 23-27 28-32 33-37 38-42 43-47 48-52 Morethan52

3

2125

34

12

62

0 0

Nu

mb

er o

f re

spo

nd

ents

Age group

Age wise distribution

6

Relationship status:

Among 103 respondents, 102 respondents provided their relationship status. More than half

of respondents were single. The relationship status of respondents is shown in graph below:

Graph 3: Relationship Status


Educational Status

Among 103 respondents, more than half have a master’s degree and less than 5% haven’t

passed SLC. The detail information is shown in graph below.

Graph 4: Educational Status


0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Single Married Divorced

58

40

4

Nu

mb

er o

f re

spo

nd

en

ts

Relationship status of respondents

53

5

38

52

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Under SLC SLC Plus2/Diploma Bachelor Masters orabove

No

. of

resp

on

den

ts

Educational status of respondents

7

Occupation:

Earlier studies has shown that use of twitter is related with one’s occupation. The occupational

status of respondents is shown in table below. Among 103 respondents, 100 provided their

occupation. More than one third were students and 1% from agriculture. Majority of

respondents were professional (40%).

Table 3: Occupational Status


4. b Tweeting Habit:

Duration of twitter use:

Among 103 respondents, more than half were using twitter for more than three years.

Number of new users was very low. The graph shows detail information:

Occupation Percent

Student 30

Academic/Educator 5

Sales/Marketing 4

Professional 44

Service/Customer Support 8

Programmer 2

Agriculture 1

Freelancer 1

Unemployed 5

Total 100

8

Graph 5: Duration of twitter use


Frequency of Use

More than 80% of respondents use twitter daily with just below 1% using twitter less than

once per month.

Graph 6: Frequency of Use


Among the daily users, 42.86% use twitter for 2-3 hours with 2.38% using less than half an

hour and 8.33% using more than 7 hours.

1 1

6 7

34

54

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Less than 1month

1 month 2 -6 months 6 months to1 years

1-3 years More than 3years

No

. of

resp

on

de

nts

How long have you joined twitter?

84

16

2 10

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Daily Several times perweek

Once per month Less then once permonth

No

.of

resp

on

den

ts

Frequency of Use

9

Graph 7: Frequency of Daily Use


Mobile Users

88% respondents use twitter on mobile.

Graph 8: Mobile Users


8.33%5.95%

10.71%

42.86%

29.76%

2.38%

0.00%

5.00%

10.00%

15.00%

20.00%

25.00%

30.00%

35.00%

40.00%

45.00%

More than 7hours

5-6 hours 4-5 hours 2-3 hours 1 hours less than halfan hour

Frequency of daily use

88%

12%

Do you use twitter on mobile?

Yes No

10

Tweeting Topics

Most popular topics to tweet were Social causes (67%), Political issues (51.5%) and Sports

(42.7%).List of most popular tweeting topics is displayed in table below.

Table 4: Popular topics to tweet


5. Conclusion

In this paper, we reported demographic information and tweeting habit of Nepali twitter users

which we hope is helpful to describe characteristics of Nepali Twittersphere. Our analysis

points to several distinct characteristics. For e.g. Majority of Nepali twitter users are male and

majority of them uses twitter daily. Among the Nepali twitter users, majority of them are of

the age group 28-32 yrs. old. Among the respondents, 52 of them have Master’s degree or

above.

6. Recommendation for future area of research

This study has been carried out in a small scale. This study is based on few socio-economic

and demographic variables. Similar type of study can be carried out by using other

approaches like social, cultural, religious, psychological, geographical and other dimensions.

Popular Topics Percent

Social Causes 67

Political Issues 51.5

Sports 42.7

Mundane Updates 34

Love Quotes 23.3

Science 17.5

Technology 4.8

Environmental Issues 2.9

Health 2

11

References

Acharya, U. (2013). Nepali Twitter Users. Kathmandu: Centre for Media Research.

Anil, A. (2014, September 24). Twitter users in Nepal. (A. Anil, Editor) Retrieved 2015, from

Aakarpost: http://tech.aakarpost.com

boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2008). Social Network Sites: Definition, History and Scholarship.

Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 210-230.

FNJ. (2012). Social Media Survey. Kathmandu: Federation Of Nepali Journalists.

Zhao, D., & Rosson, M. B. (2009). How and why people Twitter:the role that micro-blogging plays in

informal communication at work. ACM 2009 international conference on Supporting group

work (pp. 243-252). New York: ACM New York.

12

Appendix

Twitter Users of Nepal: Online Survey Questionnaire

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