What to Give Up for Lent 2016? Consider Twitter's Top Ideas

Jesus instructed his followers to pray and fast in secret. Someone must have told Twitter.

Last year, more than 400,000 people tweeted what they were giving up during the week of Ash Wednesday. The top five choices: school, chocolate, Twitter itself, alcohol, and social networking.

In 2014, almost 650,000 Twitter users shared their abstentions.

But when Lent 2016 kicked off last week, only 200,000 tweets mentioned Lent, although the top five topics themselves were identical to 2015.

What Twitters users said they gave up for Lent in 2016.

"I don’t know whether people are using Twitter less or if Twitter is throttling the data available in their API," wrote OpenBible.info’s Stephen Smith, who analyzes the numbers each year. "Either way, much less data is available this year than last."

Once again, tweets nodded to current events, including the presidential campaigns of the most (and least) popular candidates.

"Presidential candidate Donald Trump came in at #82, while 'running for president' came in at #84, referring to the withdrawal of candidates Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina from the race after disappointing results in New Hampshire," wrote Smith. "'Politics' came in at #91."

Twitter's top five Lenten choices have proven consistently popular since Smith began tracking Lent in 2009. This year's most popular topics include food (15,459 tweets), technology (5,021), and habits (4,299). Only 125 tweets mentioned sports, 70 mentioned possessions, and 49 mentioned clothes.

"[The] big gainers this year are 'indifference,' at #51, and 'being petty' at #59," wrote Smith. "The former follows Pope Francis’s Lent message from last year, which a few media outlets picked up this year."

Here’s the full list of the top 100 ideas of 2015, as well as the top 100 ideas of 2014.

Below are some charts, courtesy of OpenBible.info, on how topics have changed over time.

What's the hottest social media network these days? (Sorry, Instagram.)

Here's one attempt at tracking the "seven deadly sins":

Chipotle passed McDonald's last year for the first time, but it appears that the company's recent E. coli outbreak dramatically affected its Lenten popularity:

Popular diets:

Hot Cheetos appeared in the top 100 last year, the only namebrand snack to crack the list:

Few Lenten tweets mentioned sarcasm or complaining, but for two years in a row, at least 8,000 suggested swearing off swearing:

A sign of the times:

Anyone surprised?

Here is Smith's final total of the top 100 most-mentioned Lenten sacrifices (both serious and cynical) in 2016. (The list covers tweets from February 7 to 13 that mention giving up something for Lent and, except as noted, excludes retweets.)

Rank	Word	Count
1	chocolate	2,235
2	social networking	2,115
3	alcohol	1,902
4	twitter	1,873
5	school	1,564
6	swearing	1,413
7	soda	1,109
8	sweets	1,002
9	coffee	880
10	fast food	870
11	sugar	792
12	meat	792
13	lent	654
14	facebook	623
15	you	607
16	bread	600
17	pizza	539
18	sex	486
19	college	459
20	chips	453
21	junk food	438
22	homework	409
23	beer	369
24	boys	367
25	f***boys	344
26	candy	313
27	work	300
28	starbucks	289
29	life	283
30	religion	276
31	ice cream	266
32	netflix	255
33	giving up things	253
34	snapchat	239
35	instagram	234
36	smoking	225
37	cheese	221
38	wine	220
39	cookies	218
40	marijuana	193
41	me	191
42	tops	179
43	rice	174
44	food	170
45	stuff	161
46	french fries	160
47	makeup	157
48	catholicism	156
49	shopping	155
50	carbs	150
51	people	137
52	fried food	137
53	caffeine	133
54	feelings	127
55	red meat	127
56	desserts	121
57	indifference	121
58	mcdonalds	118
59	my phone	117
60	negativity	114
61	hope	114
62	masturbation	110
63	procrastination	109
64	complaining	108
65	booze	107
66	virginity	104
67	being petty	103
68	sobriety	103
69	coke	102
70	hot cheetos	97
71	online shopping	97
72	liquor	97
73	fizzy drinks	96
74	breathing	96
75	caring	91
76	pasta	89
77	takeout	89
78	dairy	89
79	diet coke	85
80	sleep	82
81	chipotle	82
82	chick fil a	79
83	cake	79
84	eating out	79
85	porn	78
86	pancakes	77
87	men	77
88	stress	75
89	sarcasm	71
90	taco bell	70
91	him	70
92	gluten	68
93	peanut butter	67
94	juice	67
95	this	66
96	my attitude	66
97	tea	66
98	cruelty	66
99	new years resolutions	64
100	christianity	63

2016 total including retweets (final):

Rank	Category	Number of Tweets
1	food	15,459
2	technology	5,021
3	habits	4,299
4	smoking/drugs/alcohol	3,513
5	school/work	3,235
6	relationship	1,974
7	irony	1,812
8	health/hygiene	908
9	sex	902
10	religion	738
11	generic	577
12	entertainment	462
13	politics	374
14	relationships	344
15	shopping	341
16	money	147
17	sports	125
18	celebrity	78
19	possessions	70
20	weather	57
21	clothes	49