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Americans Reactions towards Back-to-School: What Twitter Data Tells Us
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Methodology
We crawled over 1.2 million tweets in the past two weeks (August 28th – September 14th) across the United States. Then, we used an NLP tool called TensiStrength to detect positive/negative sentiments and the stress level expressed in each tweet.
U.S Back-to-School: Support or Against?
Tweets with sentiment detected as Positive are considered as Support back-to-school.
Tweets with sentiment detected as Negative are considered as Against back-to-school.
We do not take into consideration tweets with sentiment detected as Neutral.
When a state has more positive tweets than negative tweets, we consider it as the state support back-to-school, and vice versa.
With that in mind, we have:
43 states are against reopening schools.
27.63% of Americans support back-to-school.
38.41% of Americans are against back-to-school.
The seven states that support school reopening are:
- Arizona
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Kansas
- Missouri
- Nevada
- Tennessee
Among the states against going back to school, Maryland has the highest rate (41.29%).
| State | Support/Against? | % support | % against |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | Against | 30,23% | 36,45% |
| Alaska | Against | 28,90% | 37,07% |
| Arizona | Support | 32,89% | 32,28% |
| Arkansas | Against | 29,06% | 35,35% |
| California | Against | 28,09% | 35,68% |
| Colorado | Against | 19,07% | 33,06% |
| Connecticut | Support | 29,58% | 28,75% |
| Delaware | Support | 34,51% | 26,55% |
| Florida | Against | 26,76% | 37,40% |
| Georgia | Against | 26,03% | 38,63% |
| Idaho | Against | 30,17% | 36,44% |
| Illinois | Against | 30,50% | 35,58% |
| Indiana | Against | 28,32% | 38,94% |
| Iowa | Against | 30,13% | 32,86% |
| Kansas | Support | 34,87% | 29,84% |
| Kentucky | Against | 30,66% | 35,01% |
| Louisiana | Against | 32,77% | 33,53% |
| Maine | Against | 26,70% | 38,21% |
| Maryland | Against | 27,27% | 41,29% |
| Massachusetts | Against | 26,92% | 36,36% |
| Michigan | Against | 30,93% | 32,05% |
| Minnesota | Against | 28,97% | 35,71% |
| Mississippi | Against | 30,23% | 34,74% |
| Missouri | Support | 35,55% | 30,68% |
| Montana | Against | 19,08% | 33,06% |
| Nebraska | Against | 31,27% | 34,61% |
| Nevada | Support | 36,26% | 29,25% |
| New Hampshire | Against | 30,18% | 36,09% |
| New Jersey | Against | 25,83% | 39,30% |
| New Mexico | Against | 27,06% | 37,63% |
| New York | Against | 26,83% | 37,50% |
| North Carolina | Against | 31,81% | 32,81% |
| North Dakota | Against | 26,07% | 36,30% |
| Ohio | Against | 30,80% | 34,55% |
| Oklahoma | Against | 31,48% | 32,39% |
| Oregon | Against | 32,36% | 33,00% |
| Pennsylvania | Against | 26,80% | 37,09% |
| Rhode Island | Against | 27,59% | 37,93% |
| South Carolina | Against | 30,50% | 34,08% |
| South Dakota | Against | 26,00% | 33,20% |
| Tennessee | Support | 34,26% | 32,47% |
| Texas | Against | 28,88% | 37,30% |
| Utah | Against | 30,95% | 35,17% |
| Vermont | Against | 31,03% | 39,08% |
| Virginia | Against | 28,71% | 37,58% |
| Washington | Against | 28,42% | 35,34% |
| West Virginia | Against | 24,32% | 40,81% |
| Wisconsin | Against | 30,14% | 36,26% |
| Wyoming | Against | 30,82% | 33,66% |
| Hawaii | Against | 27,21% | 36,11% |
| District of Columbia | Against | 24,79% | 43,06% |
How Americans Are Stressed About Reopening Schools
Each tweet was detected with a stress level. Stress levels range from -4 to +4, and can be understood as follows:
We do not take into consideration tweets with stress level detected as Zero (which can be understood as Neutral).
When a state has more “stressed” tweets than ”relaxed” tweets, we consider it as the state is stressed about back-to-school, and vice versa.
With that in mind, we have established that:
27.72% of Americans are relaxed about back-to-school.
31.3% of Americans feel stressful about back-to-school.
23 states are stressed about reopening schools.
Top 5 states that are most relaxed about back-to-school:
- Nevada – 36.29%
- Missouri – 35.46%
- Delaware – 34.96%
- Kansa – 34.91%
- Tennessee – 34.26%
Top 5 states that are most stressed about back-to-school:
- New Jersey – 34.50%
- Maryland – 33.33%
- Indiana – 32.30%
- Georgia – 31.79%
- Maine – 31.39%
Detailed stress levels of each state:
Factors That Cause Stress
We treat the top 3 most-mentioned factors among “stressed” tweets as top 3 factors that cause stress. And those factors are:
- COVID-19 – 43.16% of tweets related to COVID-19 are “stressed”
- Face Masks – 38.46% tweets that mentioned “face masks” are “stressed”
- Donald Trump – 56.59% of tweets that mentioned the president are “stressed”
Fair Use Statement
If you know someone who could benefit from our findings, feel free to share this project with them. The graphics and content are available for noncommercial reuse. All we ask is that you link back to this page so that readers get all the necessary information and our efforts receive proper credit.
For Those Who Want to Repost/Republish
Here is the document version of this article, plus all the neccessary graphics:
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