12th February 2009
The latest study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project says that 11% of all adults use Twitter. Well, 11% of all adults in America use Twitter. Well, they use Twitter or update their status online (using Tumblr, Friendfeed or somesuch).
The study offers some great insights but I presume UK stats would be much different in terms of traffic. For instance, Twitter use has increased only 2% since November last year (which the report seems to think is a big growth) but I’m betting UK Twitter growth is much bigger over the same period.
Anyway, the real insight for me was the picture it paints of the average Twitter user – something I think (though happy to hear arguments to the contrary) that won’t be so influenced by the geographic divide. Some of the key stats include:
- The median age of a Twitter user is 31. Facebook is 26 and MySpace 27, apparently. LinkedIn makes me feel less ‘past it’, rocking in with a median age of 40.
- Tweeters are city folk – only 9% are from rural areas, whereas a mighty 35% are from urban areas (the same demographic accounts for 29% of all internet users in the US, so it’s a clear trend).
- Unsurprisingly, Twitter users are more likley to use their mobile to access t’internet – a full 40% of them surf via mobile, compared to a lowly 24% of web users that don’t use Twitter.
- 57% of Tweeters read blogs, while 29% have their own.
So there you go. Tweeters don’t look like geeks at all. Honest. Now all that’s left is for someone to do this sort of study in the UK. Or maybe one exists and I just don’t know about it. Feel free to leave comments with links to other useful/interesting/geeky social media demographic studies.
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