Who's Twittering?
30 March 2009 at 4:40 pm
Some 11% of online adults use Twitter according to a new US report which found that Twitter users are mobile and less tethered by technology. Even more interesting is that fundraising on Twitter is popular in the United States.
A report has just been released by the Pew Research Centre in the US, detailing research into the profile of US users of the increasingly popular microblogging service Twitter.
Interestingly, according to the report, Twitter users are not as young some might have expected – with a median age of 31. Compared to 27 for MySpace users; 26 for Facebook users; and a positively ancient 40 for LinkedIn users.
It also examines what other online activities Twitter users are likely to be engaged with.
Twitter and similar services have been most avidly embraced by young adults. Nearly one in five (19%) online adults ages 18 and 24 have ever used Twitter and its ilk, as have 20% of online adults 25 to 34.
Use of these services drops off steadily after age 35 with 10% of 35 to 44 year olds and 5% of 45 to 54 year olds using Twitter. The decline is even more stark among older Internet users; 4% of 55-64 year olds and 2% of those 65 and older use Twitter.
The use of Twitter is highly intertwined with the use of other social media; both blogging and social network use increase the likelihood than an individual also uses Twitter. Twitter users and status updaters are also a mobile bunch; as a group they are much more likely to be using wireless technologies — laptops, handhelds and cell phones — for Internet access, or cell phones for text messaging.
Overall, Twitter users engage with news and own technology at the same rates as other Internet users, but the ways in which they use the technology — to communicate, gather and share information — reveals their affinity for mobile, untethered and social opportunities for interaction.
Moreover, Twitter as an application allows for and enhances these opportunities, so it is not so surprising that users would engage in these kinds of activities and also be drawn to an online application that expands those opportunities.
The Pew report is based on the findings of a daily tracking survey on Americans’ use of the Internet. The bulk of the results in this report are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International between November 19 and December 20, 2008 among a sample of 2,253 adults, 18 and older, including 502 cell phone interviews as well as interviews conducted in Spanish.
You can download the report as a pdf here: www.pewinternet.org
