Twitter can sometimes cause people to turn on the TV and vice versa, research from media measurement firm Nielsen has revealed.
The Twitter Causation Study compared minute-by-minute tweets and TV ratings for 221 episodes of television programmes on major networks.
It found that related tweets caused significant changes in TV rating 29% of the time.
And changes in minute-by-minute TV ratings had an effect on the volume of related Tweets 48% of the time, meaning that as more viewers tuned in, more tweets were tweeted.
Paul Donato, CRO at Nielsen, said: "Using time series analysis, we saw a statistically significant causal influence indicating that a spike in TV ratings can increase the volume of Tweets, and, conversely, a spike in Tweets can increase tune-in."
The research also found that some varieties of shows were much more likely to benefit from Twitter conversation than others.
The methodology used for this study was developed by Nobel-winning economist Clive Granger and is widely used in the fields of econometrics, physics and neuroscience.
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