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February 19, 2009
Portrait of a Twitterer: GenY, Diverse, Urban, Wired
By Laurie Mayers
In December , 11% of online American adults said they had used Twitter or micro blogging services to share information about themselves or to see information about others, according to a new memo from the Pew Internet Project. That was nearly double the number who said they used “Twitter or another micro-blogging service” just seven months earlier.
Pew researcher Amanda Lenhart noted that while Twitter users are young, they aren’t as young as other social networkers: “Indeed, the median age of a Twitter user is 31. In comparison, the median age of a MySpace user is 27, Facebook user is 26 and LinkedIn user is 40.”
She also noted that:
* Twitter users are slightly more racially and ethnically diverse than is the full U.S. population, most likely because they are younger – and younger Americans are a more ethnically and racially diverse group than is the full population.
* Twitter users are also slightly more likely to live in urban areas, with 35% of Twitter users living in urban areas (compared to 29% of all Internet users) and just 9% of Twitterers and status updaters living in rural areas, compared to 17% of Internet users.
* Twitter users are more mobile in their communication and consumption of information. Twitter users and status updaters are 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.
Twitter users are also more likely to come from lower-income households than high-income households, likely because they are young and young people as a whole make less money than older adults.
More about the Pew report can be found here.
Posted by staff at February 19, 2009 12:12 PM
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