What Do People On Twitter Claim That They've Given Up For Lent This Year?

Last Wednesday marked the beginning of that delightful time of year called Lent, when Christians reflect on the life and death of Jesus Christ, while making sacrifices of their own for 40 days. More likely, you know it as that period when some of your friends disappear from Facebook for a month or when your best friend won’t drink beer, but has no problem getting wasted on vodka and tequila. You know, all in the name of better understanding the Son of God’s ultimate sacrifice.

If only there was a way of tracking what most Christians were giving up for Lent this year, so we could gauge what people consider truly important to themselves in this time of reflection. Fortunately, the people at OpenBible.info are trying hard to tap into social media to get a better idea, as they’ve been using the Twitter Lent Tracker since 2009 to rank the priorities of Lent observers 140 characters at a time. Obviously the number of people being tracked has increased in six years, but what about the things that they’ve given up? Let’s take a closer look.

Starting with 2009, here are the Top 5 things that people on Twitter claimed they’ve been giving up for 40 days and 40 nights.

2009
1. Facebook (654)
2. Twitter (317)
3. Chocolate (272)
4. Lent (216)
5. Alcohol (187)

2010
1. Twitter (2089)
2. Facebook (1874)
3. Chocolate (1323)
4. Alcohol (1258)
5. Swearing (1158)

2011
1. Twitter (4297)
2. Facebook (4060)
3. Chocolate (3185)
4. Swearing (2527)
5. Alcohol (2347)

2012
1. Twitter (13,937)
2. Chocolate (13,001)
3. Swearing (11,737)
4. Alcohol (9,998)
5. Soda (9,942)

2013
1. Being pope (5,654)
2. Swearing (4,944)
3. Soda (2,648)
4. Social networking (2,264)
5. Alcohol (2,217)

I don’t know what caused the dropoff in numbers between 2012 and 2013, but OpenBible points out that the Pope quitting had a huge effect on the results, as that was all people were talking about. So what about this year? Well, let’s get in-depth and take a look at the Top 45 results on the 2014 list.

To get a better idea of where people on Twitter are focusing their attention, here’s a breakdown of the categories that most people are quitting.

Now, if only we had a way to track whether or not these people were sticking to their Lent goals. That way if the people who chose Twitter ended up cheating, we could condemn them to Twitter hell, which is making them follow and interact only with Darren Rovell.

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