Majority of U.S. Twitter users took a break from the platform in past year: poll

The majority of Twitter users in the U.S. said they have taken a break from the social media platform this year, according to a Pew Research poll released Wednesday. 

Sixty percent of Americans who have used Twitter in the past 12 months said they took a break from the site for a period of several weeks or more during that period, based on the poll. 

Thirty-nine percent of polled Americans who use Twitter said they did not do this. 

The poll was conducted between March 13-19, roughly five months after billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk purchased the website.

As Twitter’s new chief, Musk made multiple changes, including peeling back misinformation policies and overhauling the blue check mark policy by allowing users to pay for the symbols.

Women were more likely than men to say they have taken a break from the platform in the past year: 69 percent of women said took a break from Twitter, compared to 54 percent for men, according to the poll. 

Sixty-seven percent of Black users said they took a break, as did 60 percent of white users and 54 percent of Hispanic users, based on the poll. 

The survey didn’t find significant differences split by age or political affiliation in the hiatus. 

Last week, Musk announced the latest change to Twitter, giving the reins as CEO over to Linda Yaccarino, the former NBCUniversal advertising chief. 

The poll surveyed 10,701 people, and its margin of error is 1.4 percentage points.