Twitter holds its breath during World Cup

Everyone has experienced the heart dropping yet exciting feeling they get when their favourite team goes to penalties. The stakes are high and so are hopes and we can barely look when one of the players goes up for the penalty, I mean it literally takes one’s breath away…and apparently Twitter’s as well.

Twitter studies have shown that during FIFA World Cup penalties Twitter collectively takes a break when a player is about to take their kick. According to a Mashable article titled “ Wait for it… Twitter collectively holds its breath in World Cup Shootouts”

Data from Twitter highlights how activity fluctuates and flows dramatically during a shootout. It also demonstrates how users react right after the shot was taken by the insane flood of tweets received right after.

Twitter later announced that Thursday during the Brazil vs. Chile game they received the “highest single-minute activity” of the World Cup. On the Saturday of the game they received 388,985 tweets per minute right after the last penalty shot was taken.

To further their research, Twitter decided to uncover the dramatic ups and downs of the penalty shootout by looking at tweets per second.  Their graph showed how much Twitter activity dropped as players took their shot. Furthermore Twitter reported that it found this pattern repeatedly throughout the penalty shootout in the tournament.

When the referee blows their whistle the whole world falls silent until he scores and no matter the outcome, the Twitterverse erupts in either tremendous applause or disappointment.

It’s interesting to see how huge world events impact everyone around the world; it’s even more interesting to see everyone’s reactions through social media, it’s almost as if you’re right their feeling their immense joy or immense sadness.

Twitter has proved to be a great portal to access information about not only the World Cup, but also other world events that take place. It has become a portal where we can truly express emotions and opinions; I know I’ve used Twitter as a tool to blow off some steam this World Cup.

Patricia Ferreira, Raven5 Ltd., Oakville, ON July, 2014

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