The Smartest and Dumbest States in the Union, Based on Tweets

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Is your home state filled with geniuses or boneheads? A new study has set out to discover just that, according to your borderline illiterate posts on Twitter. Quirky real estate company, Movoto, analyzed more than 500,000 tweets from across the country to determine the average grade reading level of each state. The results are laughably pathetic, with the entire United States scoring just below a 5th grade reading level. Below we've listed the Top and Bottom 5 states, according to Movoto's study.

Smartest States:

5) Maine - 5.296

4) Minnesota - 5.316

3) Massachusetts - 5.325

2) Wyoming - 5.506

1) Vermont - 5.751

Now while the analysis of tweets should probably be taken with a grain of salt, considering the 140 character limit and use of hashtags do not necessarily offer a stage for conveying much intellectual thought, there are some interesting correlations with the data. For instance, Massachusetts, Vermont and Minnesota also scored within the Top 10 of 8th grade reading proficiency, according to the 2009 State of the States Education study.

Dumbest States:

5) Mississippi - 4.464

4) Arkansas - 4.456

3) Alabama - 4.428

2) South Carolina - 4.384

1) Louisiana - 4.246

And on the flip side, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina and Alabama also scored within the Bottom 10 of 8th grade reading, according to the same 2009 study. For a more in-depth look into the reading level by region, you can view the data within Movoto's beautifully interactive, 3D map.