DISQUS

Alex McElroy · 4 months ago

Yeah, I'm 17 and I use Twitter. Why? Because I'm interested in news and tech and the internet and social media as a whole. I also have a Facebook account. Why? To stay connected with my friends.

Two services, two unique purposes, two target audiences. I use Twitter to connect to the internet and see what people are talking about, and I use Facebook to see what my friends are talking about.

Megan Z · 4 months ago

I'm on the cusp of my teenage years, and I've been on twitter for quite some time. Whenever I bring up twitter with my friends, they know what it is, probably have an account, but have abandoned it after a week because "It doesn't make sense/is stupid/you're stupid." But when I sign onto facebook and see them, in essence, tweeting through their statuses (aka updating several times a day, hoping to get comments), it doesn't make sense/is stupid that they've developed this snobbery for twitter. I hope this changes, but if not, I'll keep tweeting with the middle aged group just the same.

michelleking · 4 months ago

I think Megan has just proven my theory...that the young will likely evolve as their interests evolve.

I think the points about keeping in touch with friends is equally interesting for us grown-ups. I love Facebook because I can find out about my friends, their vacations and their kids, where they live now and how much weight they've gained.

Frankly things don't change as quickly for the over 25 as it does for the under 25 so how we keep in touch can be different. My connections don't use Facebook as often because things aren't happening that we want/need to share.

On the other hand the outside world is moving so quickly. I love knowing what is going on sooner than even live television can inform me. I am particularly excited by being connected to so many people I would never normally have any opportunity to be close to. I am sure that the connection of people is now less than 6 degrees.

Whether it is the twits from Ashton or the exchanges with his wife to the fabulous folks from Australia, the UK and the US that follow each other how else would I have this opportunity ? It certainly isn't with Facebook.

LinkedIn is another amazing tool for keeping in touch with former work colleagues. I really enjoy catching up and staying up to date. It makes networking on a professional level quite manageable. And I don't want to share my vacation photos with any of my LinkedIn contacts.

Great article.

And Megan, I am sure us middle aged folks love to hear from you.

ronanob · 4 months ago

My take on it is that teens don't tweet because there is a limitation of 140 characters. Accepting limitations is only for grown ups.

Benjamin Dobson · 4 months ago

So how about "The sort of teens you'd see on BBC Three don't tweet."?

Kate · 4 months ago

Twitter is more intellectually driven - focuses more on information sharing and current events. Facebook is more relationally driven. Both serve excellent purposes, but it makes sense to me that unless twitter adds new features it will continue to appeal primarily to adults and professionals.

Matt Southern · 4 months ago

I'm 22, so while I'm not a teen I'm included in the under 25 demographic. I use twitter because, like the article mentioned, I enjoy having an audience. When I update my status on facebook only my friends can see it, when I update my status on twitter any twitter user around the world could potentially end up reading it. I also find it incredibly useful in keeping up with current events, I rely on twitter to provide me with the latest news.

Why I think more people my age don't use twitter is because they don't get it. They think its just about posting status updates, which they can already do on facebook, but twitter is so much more than that. I try to tell everyone I know to join twitter but unfortunately the concept is lost on them

CoilyHair · 4 months ago

I don't think it's that teens 'don't tweet', I think it's that they don't tweet to the intensity that corporations, media sources, and online media gurus do. Their tweets for the day may be a few hi's and hello's to their friends, but the later is a constant barrage of information hurled into cyberspace. The stats for the later will always come out as more than what teens produce, and would be coming from a much older age bracket at that.

Jake · 4 months ago

Don't want to sound like everyone that FREAKS OUT when they read this, but I'm 15, I use Twitter, and ALL of my closest friends do also, not to mention I've made new friends from twitter I never would have made otherwise. Don't go around thinking that no Teens use Twitter at all, cause that's a lie. From my experience, most people my age just don't get the point when you first tell them, they say, "Why, when Facebook or MySpace already does that?" But, once they try it, they fall in LOVE with it. It can help you build friendships and relationships in a way that can't happen otherwise.

Plus, from what I've seen, it's normally our parents in that majority age group that thinks it's pointless and we're wasting our time.

Karuna Venter · 4 months ago

Interesting that you think teens don't tweet because they have nothing to say. Hmmmm, dunno about that one, you ever seen a teen w/ a cell phone?

jfredson · 4 months ago

But what are they using their cell phones for? They are using them to interact with their friends, not share knowledge with the world. Twitter is about public knowledge and sharing. Teens tend to care more their social sphere which is why many (most?) prefer Facebook and find no value in Twitter.

Leon Taveras · 4 months ago

There are some people that are putting a comma in the pharse "Teens Dont Tweet" so it says "Teens, Dont tweet" as an offense. Like someone said who "Teens don't tweet anything useful or intelligent. Always drama and horrible tastes in music and media."

Nate · 4 months ago

I think it's true about Twitter being less about your friends and more about world events. It's not completely ridiculous to say that teens care more about who is dating who, who dumped who- which Facebook's news feed is excellent at doing, while less youthful people want to know more about world events- is cash for clunkers still going on? - for that they look at Twitter. So the question is will these websites pick up on that and fill their niche, or will Facebook keep trying to be more like Twitter?

Brandon · 4 months ago

My only beef with this post (and by and large it is an excellent post) is the 'most important question of all' in the second paragraph - 'Why aren't teens using Twitter?' This should really say 'Why aren't MORE teens using Twitter?' The rest of the post is well balanced - I just think people are quick to make incorrect blanket statements without probing a little deeper and discovering the insights into WHY some TRENDS occur. Clearly from the rest of your post, you get it. Thanks for the topic - I certainly had plenty to read today. :)

adamjackson · 4 months ago

Yes exactly. This was my complaint as well. The first post was even worse basically the title implies that zero teenagers are using Twitter. That's incorrect but it gets clicks just like national enquirer posting that Obama has a third nipple when it was really just a mole.

David Abraham · 4 months ago

1) Teens like to engage with content (photos, videos) Twitter does this inefficiently
2) Teens like two way dialog. - Most celebs don't reply
3) Default experience for Twitter is a disaster. You sign up and then you are alone in a canyon.

Ken · 4 months ago

Insightful analysis, Ben. I think Twitter's not cliquish enough for teenagers. Too wide open. Scary. Big wide world vs. your own little world of friends. My apologies to the 16 percent who aren't "typical" teenagers, I know you're out there and some of you are probably thinking that the other teenagers are idiots.

James Bailey · 4 months ago

more stereotype, but many teens can't say hello in 140 characters. Also no worthless apps about what color is your cat's aura. Thus FB

adamjackson · 4 months ago

so basically ALL teens are stupid?

don't worry I'm not defending anybody since I'm not a teenager but maybe based on this data and your opinions 16% of teens are smart :P

Alineoi · 4 months ago

>.<' I not comment

Harrison Conlin · 4 months ago

I am a teenager and see some my friends try twitter but get tired of it after a week. Some of the reasons I hear include too much effort, none of their friends use it or its just boring

Matt Biebel · 4 months ago

I don't understand, "too much effort"? Twitter takes no effort, or as much effort as you like to put in to it.

yopman · 4 months ago

@matt you"re a geek, aren't you ?
We are talking about people, not nerds who have a iPhone and a continuous internet connection. Can you understand that some people don't need to do efforts for a commucation service, that theirs friends are not using?

Wade Champeno · 4 months ago

yea its hard to keep uo with people on here you get to many followers on twitter and you try to get alot of people to follow to.

Hey other news check out this site.. If it takews off it could kick ebays but with its low pricing. the site is www,freewayauction.com..

Cynthia · 4 months ago

My daughter, who is 17, thinks Twitter is "the devil." She hates it. But I do have to point out that your example -- "you didn't hear about Paula Abdul?" -- might shed light on the gen gap too. She could care LESS about Paula Abdul. "You didn't hear about 3OH!3", maybe she'd care about.

Ben Parr · 4 months ago

I could have used "You didn't hear about Soulja Boy?" and made the same point. Or Miley. Or Taylor Swift.

Benjamin Dobson · 4 months ago

My sister thinks the same. It is of course based on prejudice.

Cezar · 4 months ago

It's good that there is at least one place (besides Linkedin) that is not invaded by teens.

Karuna Venter · 4 months ago

I think this is probably most accurate:
- Add features or a culture that provides new value for teenagers who primarily want to talk with friends.

That, and the fact that their friends have to use it in order for them to get on board. Agreed, snowball phenom...but are you finding that teens don't follow the celebs we think of as teen-oriented? eg. Shouldn't the ability to follow Paula Abdul help w/the teen demo?

Meghann · 4 months ago

Gen Y *has* embraced twitter. 25+ is your gen y and they're the ones using it in a healthy percentage. We need to create a new label for the Facebook/myspace teens. Plus, they don't stay teens for very long....

adamjackson · 4 months ago

EXACTLY! As I've said before to people worrying about marketing to the teen market, teenagers get older. Backstreet Boy fans in 1999 aren't there to buy the guy's albums in 2009 but U2 Fans at 25 are still U2 fans when they're 40.

I'd rather have a product that appeals to people who can actually buy things when they click on my ads and have a larger network of "real friends" not online friends and a generation that is larger than the current.

There are more 25-40 year olds than 13-19 year olds.

Marco Carag · 4 months ago

Agreed; appealing to a teenage demographic does not guarantee nearly the loyalty of 25+. At least, if I use myself as any sort of metric -- very few of my random tastes as a teenager have survived until now, and many more that have stuck were fostered after college. :)

Teenagers are fickle, and they're just using their parents' money, anyway. Go fig.

liebowitz · 3 months ago

Teens are replaced daily. Old farts are lost daily. Do the math. Teen market = huge profits (as long as you don't remain stagnate).

Bethan · 4 months ago

I'm 19, and me and my 'online friends' have created a new and bigger friendship circle via twitter. By following people that often get @ mentioned, we've created a new social circle for ourselves.

However, I can clearly see that this is not too often the case. I'd guess that about 90% of the people I'm following are 21 or over.

tannerc · 4 months ago

Holy crap, Twitter is the modern day plague.

DrDonzo · 4 months ago

The overriding reason is that tweeting is something you do while bored AT WORK. When you are bored AT SCHOOL, there are many other things to do. Oh, and correct me if I am wrong, but you can't use a phone or computer in class. It's what experts in the field might call a "no-brainer".

adamjackson · 4 months ago

The thing is that there are still millions of blue-collar americans that don't sit behind a desk and can only log on once they get home (just like today's students)

I'd argue that more high school students have smart phones and thus can social network at lunch or on break. I had a laptop all 4 years of school with Wi-Fi so social networking was easy as pie for me whle my mom (a male courier) and my dad (a personal trainer) didn't find themselves in front of a PC until they got home every night.

DrDonzo · 4 months ago

So which members of your family are on Twitter? I assume you are now, but would you have been tweeting between classes at school or trying to take upskirt shots of the girls with your phone? Probably both :)

adamjackson · 4 months ago

That's a toughy. I'm an exception to this poll so to be completely honest, I was blogging about technology and fixing PCs in my spare time at 16. I went to my first tech conference in San Francisco at the age of 16 (a cross country solo flight that I paid for with ad sales on my blog).

I'm a total dork so I don't think my case is aligned with most kids

cliquekaila · 4 months ago

I'm an avid twitter-er and only 24. I think the statistics are a bit off base, but still relatively correct. My friends don't tweet much, and the only reason they're on the site is because I keep talking about it, trying to convert them. I think the comment "Teens, more than any other age group, care about their friends" is truly correct. When teens want to communicate, they want to do so in IM's, play games with their friends, send quizzes to their friends, and in general be more interactive.

Twitter doesn't have enough bells and whistles to really captivate this age group, compared with sites like Facebook and MySpace that have pretty colors and lots of interaction abilities.

Mike Langford · 4 months ago

I think there are two main reason why teens don't tweet:

1. They have nothing sell - You mentioned this in the "promotional tool" section of your article. This is very true for teens as well as the 90% of Twitter users who are making up on 10% of the tweet volume. Heavy users of Twitter are looking to maximize subscriptions to their stream so they can expose a relevant (hopefully) audience to their message. Few teens have this motivation.

2. Twitter is a ton of work - The concept is simple, type 140 characters and hit send. Follow people, rather subscribe to streams, of interest and off you go. But if you step back a moment you realize that the people who are finding success with Twitter have put an enormous amount of work into it. Teens hate work. Twitter is a learned behavior and it's one that is not palatable to the average person as a communications medium. Why should teens be any different?

adamjackson · 4 months ago

Twitter is less work than Facebook or Myspace. Twitter only requires 1-5 tweets a day that can be sent over SMS/ Text. Myspace and Facebook are wall posts, comments, app invites, blog posts, music sharing, video sharing and person to person messages. You can add all of that to Tiwtter but your'e not forced to do so. The simple formula is just the tweet.

I'm with you on the promotional aspect of things but having been on Twitter for nearly 3 years, I can say self-promotion and "marketing" wasn't associated with Twitter until 12 months ago.

Benjamin Dobson · 4 months ago

Interesting. As someone who doesn't like to follow marketers and finds it more work not to use Twitter, I'd say the most work is in figuring out what to do. There are so many ways of using it that it could well take two or three attempts to find the one that's right for you.

duey23 · 4 months ago

All of the traffic numbers cited seem to come directly from twitter.com and likely do not include other interfaces such as TwitterFeed, PeopleBrowsr, HootSuite, etc. So is there a potential lack of coverage in the sampling frame?

Additionally, most people looking at Twitter demographics (pulled indirectly or directly from Twitter.com bios and information) admit that one does NOT have to include age or even their legitimate geographic location (remember not so long ago that everyone was to change their timezone to Iran?), so I'm finding reliable data very difficult to come by and therefore difficult to quote. Twitter doesn't even publicly share their numbers.

comScore and Nielsen traditionally report and project their statistics from panels of respondents who have agreed to download their respective softwares to track their activity online (U.S. panels ranging from 30,000-400,000 users only).

18-24 year olds are THE MOST difficult demographic to recruit for traditional Market Research panels both online and off. Why would one not theorize that this same demographic is less likely to accept "researchware" downloaded to their computers so that their activities can be monitored or even be willing to participate in a "big brother" type of activity?

I love the discussion on this, but just don't know if there's any data that can stand on it's own just yet. But to bolster the argument, I'm 43 and use Twitter & Facebook so there you go... I actually agree with ALL of your points about what Twitter needs to do to appeal to the younger group. You're spot on with those. Good job.

Ben Parr · 4 months ago

I noted TweetDeck to compensate for that trend. It's even worse of a demographic skew when you get into the 3rd party apps.

duey23 · 4 months ago

Ahh, sorry Ben you did. But I guess it's the speed with which Nielsen and comScore put these out that has people thinking. Twitter.com is horrible and boring and so most users are definitely using other interfaces. Numbers from those guys should include subsidiary info about the 3rd party apps just to avoid any sort of continual scrutiny.

Cole Geissinger · 4 months ago

I am in under 25 age group and I am on Twitter more than Facebook. I agree with the fact that Twitter is lacking in keeping track of your friends, that's why I find myself keeping Facebook as my central for friends and family and keeping strictly business and interests for Twitter which I'm always watching.

Veit Schenk · 4 months ago

mhmm, not sure that Twitter is 'intellectually' driven -- a large proportion of it appears to be driven by people (looking for a PC version of 'idiots') trying to flog tooth-whitening programs or tools to find more twitter followers.

which in a way validates the point that it's not about the 'social' aspect, the building of connections. "Here's my stuff, I spam you, if you don't like it, I don't care." (the cost of this approach is of course that it'll be harder for them to find people who follow them back)

Veit

Bradley Boshers · 4 months ago

I think the audience thing makes sense. The things I put on Twitter are put there as mostly to get some sort of reaction out of the people I know are following me, or to share information w/ them in a goofy way. Twitter is like a big inside joke machine for me and the ppl I know who have one. I think the article is correct in the fact that teens don't need Twitter as the same outlet that adults seem to.

jorgeavilam · 4 months ago

I think this is correct since adults are always "networking" and teens usually tend to closed-know groups.

goldanne · 4 months ago

do u think id better change my pic --next week?--
it is very recent lol

Mike · 4 months ago

This article is right on. The only people screaming bloody murder over the reports should be over-zealous marketers who have invested themselves in Twitter and therefore would lose credibility if it wasn't the second coming. Teens aren't on Twitter, and it's OK. The new Verizon commercial says it all (the one where the kids are mad at the parents for playing on their cell phones) - teens aren't impressed, and they shouldn't be. Facebook does it all and more.

Chuck Mattina · 4 months ago

What is still missing in this analysis (which is quite good, by the way) is TEXTING. My belief is that teens don't see Twitter as a social media platform the way they do Facebook; rather, they see it as a communications alternative that falls flat relative to texting.

What is most important for Twitter to understand is what competitive set they play in relative to teens. If it is, as I suppose, texting and not other true social media platforms, they are in danger as teens appear to be very satisfied with the ease (and privacy) provided by texting.

Pooja · 4 months ago

Okay, honestly? That's a lie. I know that a lot of my friends don't use twitter but here's the thing: It took a few years for us to realized MySpace and Facebook existed. I found out about Twitter this year on the radio and finally joined in April to see what it's all about. It just takes time, is all. My friend says it's easier for her to use because it's simple and isn't cluttered with comments and messages, and whatnot and I think that it's the simplicity that makes it weird for teens. But if you have a legit reason for using it, then it becomes more enjoyable. Twitter is where I post up updates about my blog when I have a new entry up, whereas my friend finds it simple to use. Some teens don't use because they don't know what to use it for or why to use it. Once they discover a reason, they'll definitely use it. And yes, whoever said this before me...teens don't stay teens forever. They grow up.

adamjackson · 4 months ago

Key point: You found out about it on the radio!

isn't it a very well known statistic that teens don't follow traditional media (news, print, broadcast, radio) and they're glued to the web, their social circle and iPods.

Exactly! Twitter may have seen millions in free advertising this past year from big media companies that are all u sing Twitter but if teens aren't paying attention to those outlets (which it's a well known fact that most aren't) then they'll never be subject to that exposure.

Twitter, I think was comprised of a large group of teenagers (maybe 35% prior to October '08 when Twitter really started getting popular (breaking news, celebrities, national attention) and when that happened, droves of 30-45 year olds joined up because Oprah, CNN And The View were using it and now we have this demographic.

sam · 4 months ago

im 15 and everytime someone my age finds out i have a twitter, they look at me funny and say something along the lines of "whats the point? status updates are why i have facebook." although i do know a few people my age who have a twitter, the majority of people im talking to on there are my "online friends" and to keep up with my favorite bands- like my chemical romance and alkaline trio- who have twitters and update about their albums and tours, etc. i dont think a lot of people my age realize that its not only about status updates and world news, but also about things that will directly affect them, like what their favorite celebrities are doing or what movies are getting good reviews. if more teens realized that they can actually find out things that will directly affect them and their friends then they would use it more.

rachel · 4 months ago

im on twitter! im a teen, i tweet!!! what the hell is ur freakin problem, who ever made this artical is a freakin loser!

sam · 4 months ago

he's not a loser.. it's a fact that not many teens are on twitter.

Benjamin Dobson · 4 months ago

…seriously? It's just, that comment seems to conform so perfectly to the teen stereotype, it's hard to believe it isn't satire.

Wade Champeno · 4 months ago

Yea I can't believe kids don't tweet. Thats odd. But myspace and facebook are definately better for connecting to people. But twitter is better for promoting business's.

Hey new news check out this website it could kick ebay but if it ever takes off. It has really reasonable pricing compared to ebay. Its www.freewayauction.com. I think it might be a home run in a few yeas after word catches on.

Felipe Santos · 4 months ago

The fact teens react to the results of a study by saying things like "that's a lie, I'm 16" and "WTF?I call this blasphemy" shows that they should really just stick with facebook and myspace.

And if all you write about is Cyrus and Hollywood nonsense its prob a good thing they're not wasting peoples time and space with that kind of info anyways.

Am I the only one tired of seeing crap on TT just because teens feel the need to tweet the same tag 20 times on tweets over and over and over again just to be on TT

Felipe Santos · 4 months ago

The fact teens react to the results of a study by saying things like "that's a lie, I'm 16" and "WTF?I call this blasphemy" shows that they should really just stick with facebook and myspace.

And if all you write about is Cyrus and Hollywood nonsense its prob a good thing they're not wasting peoples time and space with that kind of info anyways.

Am I the only one tired of seeing crap on TT just because teens feel the need to tweet the same tag 20 times on tweets over and over and over again just to be on TT.

sam · 4 months ago

that is so annoying. i hate seeing TT with no meaning, whatsoever. and as a teen it sucks that mostly its teenagers doing those annoying things, confirming stereotypes that don't apply to me, therefore lumping me in with them.

WWAHHMpreneur · 4 months ago

Another factor that I didn't see discussed is parental agreement/permission/encouragement for teens to use twitter. I think it would be great to see a survey of parents of teens regarding twitter as a social media outlet for their kids.

xs · 4 months ago

I think I'm missing the part where teens not tweeting is a problem. What's wrong with having a site which is largely used by people in their 30s and 40s? There are plenty of online places for the kiddies.

Benjamin Dobson · 4 months ago

I'm very inclined to write a post on my own blog tackling two general purpose questions: "Why do people join Twitter?" and "Why do people stop using Twitter?"

I don't think teens are any different on either of these counts. You hit the nail on the head when you said it's all about friends. As someone with very few friends in real life, I joined Twitter because the people on @MacHeist were using Twitter. I thought I'd give it a shot.

There is a certain irony to it being about friends, but such is the nature of the real world. And people who just follow their friends are missing the point, and as such won't like it. So I think if the Twitter home page told people that you're meant to follow strangers, far fewer people would quit.

Ham MacTully · 4 months ago

Do you know what percentage of the world population are teens? It is about 12%. Teens, therefore, are statistically over-represented in twitter. Yes, they aren't represented as much as they are on facebook or myspace, but that is no doubt the nature of twitter. They are still represented. Your sensationalist headline is silly at best and totally misleading at worst.

Please try again. Take population percentage in mind next time.

Joshua Novak · 4 months ago

The population demographics of the real world don't reflect those of the internet. Do you expect seniors or middle-aged people to be online as much as teens? If teens were represented they same they are on the rest of the internet, it should be about 20-25% at least.

Justin Malvin · 4 months ago

While the numbers certainly seem accurate, what we're seeing here is just a snapshot of a rapidly expanding user base growing disproportionately. It’s kind of like fetus having a giant head. It doesn’t mean the baby is going to come out looking like the Elephant man.

Twitter’s inherent simplicity has the side effect of making the service super adaptable to the specific needs of all of its users. That’s why Twitter became so popular in the first place. Politicians use it to get their point across, Mashable uses it to push blog posts, and I use it to share and collaborate with fellow professionals. None of those uses (which now make up the majority of tweets) are in line with the creators’ original intent, but it turns out it doesn’t matter.

Teens will eventually find their own best practices for Twitter, and then their participation will explode and outpace any other age group like they always do. When they want to, they’ll be able to blow past all of us 24+ demos because they have a commodity most of us don’t, tons of free time.

[Shameless plug: @JustinMalvin]

Justin Malvin · 4 months ago

While the numbers certainly seem accurate, what we're seeing here is just a snapshot of a rapidly expanding user base growing disproportionately. It’s kind of like fetus having a giant head. It doesn’t mean the baby is going to come out looking like the Elephant man.

Twitter’s inherent simplicity has the side effect of making the service super adaptable to the specific needs of all of its users. That’s why Twitter became so popular in the first place. Politicians use it to get their point across, Mashable uses it to push blog posts, and I use it to share and collaborate with fellow professionals. None of those uses (which now make up the majority of tweets) are in line with the creators’ original intent, but it turns out it doesn’t matter.

Teens will eventually find their own best practices for Twitter, and then their participation will explode and outpace any other age group like they always do. When they want to, they’ll be able to blow past all of us 24+ demos because they have a commodity most of us don’t, tons of free time.

[Shameless plug: @JustinMalvin]

ckawa · 4 months ago

Thx for elaborating on the data and providing this important context. This makes perfect sense to me as just last night my son (who's a tween) asked me if all my so-called "Friends" on Twitter were really friends. And I realized that they aren't all personal friends in the same context as I have on Facebook.

flor francisconi · 4 months ago

I prefer facebook because I can send direct messages, even if the person is not a friend, That´s nice!

StevenGroves · 4 months ago

I have two teens - both have Twitter accounts, but both mainly use Facebook

Isaac Naor · 4 months ago

Great and well-balanced article, @BenParr!

Geir Holen · 4 months ago

Is it a problem that teens doesn't tweet? And should twitter change into something else, so they get the attention from more teens? Or should they focus on the large groupe of people from all around the world, that has made twitter such a great sucess? The worst thing they can do, is to change Twitter into something like Facebook or Myspace!

Psych · 4 months ago

I think you need to consult some Developmental Psychologists next time, before writing another such an article.

Lexi Swinimer · 4 months ago

As a 24 year old who recently adopted twitter, the first thing that makes me happy is that I'm still in the 'teenager' age bracket... In all seriousness though, I agree that the peer pressure model is going to be the biggest push to get Teens to Tweet (It's how I convince all my friends to join, I email them all this information that they don't know that I've found out through twitter that is of interest of them) Additionally, I think in general people need to realize that YOU are a brand. Brand yourself and careers, relationships, and commitments become easier to manage and easier to come by. Facebook is nice because it keeps us connected, Twitter is nice because it lets us brand ourselves- based on what we say, who we say it to, how we say it, who we listen to and who we don't. Facebook doesn't offer that same community forum for this type of branding.

AC · 4 months ago

I'm under 25 and I use twitter only because I'm in the PR industry and it's such a "big thing" but if it was up to myself and my own choices - I DEFINITELY WOULD NOT be using twitter. I still think it blows and it isn't as interesting as Facebook or MySpace. It's true - I don't care who is doing what and I use it only to share interesting links or RT career advice and/or anything else I find useful. Therefore, I only use twitter because I feel obligated to (so I can impress employers in the PR industry I know the deal)

Keffrey · 4 months ago

My geek friends and I have been tweeting for over 2 years now (before the big twitter boom) and when somebody in our age group (14) tried to start tweeting, they said it was boring and required too much effort. Like what Harrison said.

Alex · 4 months ago

So, basically, the solution is that Twitter should become more like Facebook and Bebo? Why? The reason I've abandonned Facebook is because I'm fed up of being bombarded by requests from pointless applications like "Which famous pet from history are you?" or "What does your hairbrush say about you?" Zzzzz... Facebook is only good these days for rummaging through the photos of long-lost school friends or random people you meet in a bar. As for networking, the majority of my Twitter contacts are my friends, so I even use it for that. In fact, it's better for social networking, because it's easier for a large group of mutual friends to have an on-going open conversation or to arrange to meet as a group.

Alex · 4 months ago

So, basically, the solution is that Twitter should become more like Facebook and Bebo? Why? The reason I've abandonned Facebook is because I'm fed up of being bombarded by requests from pointless applications like "Which famous pet from history are you?" or "What does your hairbrush say about you?" Zzzzz... Facebook is only good these days for rummaging through the photos of long-lost school friends or random people you meet in a bar. As for networking, the majority of my Twitter contacts are my friends, so I even use it for that. In fact, it's better for social networking, because it's easier for a large group of mutual friends to have an on-going open conversation or to arrange to meet as a group.

sandiego67 · 4 months ago

Twitter is great for diseminating news and events to the masses (neither of which interest most teenagers).

What significant contributions could 99.9% of all teens possibly add to the discussions (other than movies, music or video games)?

Jake · 4 months ago

I think a lot of you need to look back to the basic idea of Twitter, answering "What are you doing?" In some ways, I really think it's lost that. Twitter is a GREAT conversation maker, and sharing things about your life instantly with the people who care about it. [I'm 15, use Twitter, along with all my other best friends]

The thing is, we just use Twitter SLIGHTLY different than you do. First of all, it's great to start a conversation with someone, if you want to text someone, but don't know how to start, say something about their last tweet! Or, to get an opinion, say you're out shopping, and can't decide which shirt you like more or something, TwitPic both, and ask for an opinion from ALL of your friends at once. Even just announcing that your favorite band just released their new CD and just bought it, it tells your friends, the kinds of things you like, and brings them closer into your life than they could be otherwise.

Aslo, all the time because of Twitter, I will find out one of my friends is in the EXACT same place I am, yet I didn't even know they were going to be there, it's great for learning about and connecting with your friends in REAL TIME in ways you couldn't without it.

All most teens need to do is try it, and actually have some of their friends to follow and they'll love it. If their friends are on it, pretty much all teens would love it, as I've seen in almost everyone of my friends I've brought to it. So saying Teens don't have a purpose to use it is completely wrong.

[wow. I really do ramble. XD]

sandiego67 · 4 months ago

.....................

Cooki · 4 months ago

It's too bad the younger ones don't.

they might become smarter people if they did. Mostly, my experience is: that they really don't have that connection or buy-in to the real world. Narcissists wouldn't care for Twitter either, Mostly, not all, of the younger ones are more self-involved than worldly involved.

I find Twitter one of the best ways to keep the mind on thought-provoking, mind enriching material. And the part about it not be central around pre-existing friends is terrific. Now I have pre-existing ones on Face, & my Twitter crowd of tweeter pals, to combine the experience. I love it.

Cing-Love

Ryan Omega · 4 months ago

I think twitter is not popular among teens, not just because they care about their friends, but it's because teens also want validation. Twitter is not a good place for that.

Imagine that you see your favorite celeb on twitter like Paris Hilton or Ashton Kutcher and as a teen, you think you have a chance to talk to your favorite star. Because they have tons of followers, a teen can send messages all day long and not get any responses. Teenagers will not put up with that. They may have tons of friends on twitter and the responses and retweets will *still* be few. Teens want to be able to forge an identity on the internet and have their friends respond to it.

Twitter is great as an equalizing social media and popularity is at the whim of the twitterverse. But the average teenager may not be patient enough to stick around to figure out how to be loved by twitter.

Yasmin · 4 months ago

I said on the last article that I'm 17 and obviously use twitter. And I mentioned that most teens prefer sites like myspace and facebook because there is more to do (quizzes, photo albums, wall posts, etc) - and that's what I still think it mainly comes down to.
Before I joined twitter one of my friends wrote on my 'wall' on Facebook that i should join twitter. I had no clue what it even was so I asked and their description was "It's basically like when you update your status on here." ... I felt like replying 'wtf is the point in that?' but simply said 'nah that's not for me, sorry.'
Then twitter started to get around more with my friends and I kept getting loads more people trying to encourage me to join, and after a while my curiosity got the better of me. But I still couldn't see the point! Infact, my first tweet was "Really don't understand the point in this .....6:26 PM Apr 7th from web "
haha. But then I found that my favourite site (http://www.socialvibe.com) had a twitter acct, which i followed, and that got me more into it and sparked my interest in starting my own blog, which then gave me something to tweet. But as the months have gone on, i've been less interested in tweeting about my own blog and more interested in reading about others! I follow so many different newspapers and blogs and a few celebrities and journalists, I totally see how useful it is now!
But that sorta thing really doesn't appeal to most teenagers at all, like this article says..

yep · 4 months ago

Translation: Teenagers only care about what their friends think. Adults only care about telling the world what to think.

WALTER CAMPOS · 4 months ago

I guess another deterrent is that Tweeter doesn't exactly allow it's users to feel like quasi - celebrities. Facebook gives you the chance to show all (or at least try) how cool you are. Mainly via -videos of some cool party that you attended to or pictures of that awesome trip, etc...
Besides the "being followed" factor, there's not much you can do to fabricate this cooler-than-you-actually-are persona.

fit for a king · 4 months ago

It's mostly been said, but I'll put it together this way. Most teens are mobile and local. Meaning they're away at school, at the mall, at soccer practice, and their friends surround them physically throughout the day.

Teens moving in these environments convey personal messaging in the cheapest possible way--directly face to face, or on cheap cell phones with text plans.

Teens have no interest in the impersonal ad stream or the latest breaking news--unless it's delivered by friends.

Teens don't use twitter because they don't get anything they need from it that they can't get in a cheaper, funner, more convenient way elsewhere.

ap21 · 4 months ago

kind of true ... twitter is for people wanting to grow their brand or seo ppl rubbing each others backs. on fb or so I can confine updates etc. specifically to the ppl I want, (and I only friend ppl I met at least once irl) so I guess it's true ... even for the ppl who post status updated/links/photos of world events on facebook (some do) for them what their friends think is much more important then some stranger who probably doesn't have time to reply because of his 9000+ followers anyway.

Jayson · 4 months ago

I think this also speaks and lends even more credibility to the argument that twitter is more of a fad. The "older" demographic is more concerned about leveraging the latest and greatest, because they fear being left behind. Agency people talk about twitter because it's critical that they give the impression they are on the cutting edge. Businesses rush to twitter not because of the function, but because they read headlines about how other businesses are doing the exact same. Indeed, I hear more people in the advertising and business sectors speaking about twitter than I do people who are not (pure observation, admittedly). Compare that to how people use facebook, myspace, or other social sites, and especially how they converse about them, and it really shows that twitter is an emperor without any clothes.

Considering the data that reveals that the vast majority of tweets come from the tiniest set of the population, i don't think the concept that older people want an audience holds much water, if anything.

The sole advantage twitter has compared to facebook updates is the openness of it's data and api's. If facebook took a less restrictive stance to both, you would see twitter vanish.

Jayson · 4 months ago

I think this also speaks and lends even more credibility to the argument that twitter is more of a fad. The "older" demographic is more concerned about leveraging the latest and greatest, because they fear being left behind. Agency people talk about twitter because it's critical that they give the impression they are on the cutting edge. Businesses rush to twitter not because of the function, but because they read headlines about how other businesses are doing the exact same. Indeed, I hear more people in the advertising and business sectors speaking about twitter than I do people who are not (pure observation, admittedly). Compare that to how people use facebook, myspace, or other social sites, and especially how they converse about them, and it really shows that twitter is an emperor without any clothes.

Considering the data that reveals that the vast majority of tweets come from the tiniest set of the population, i don't think the concept that older people want an audience holds much water, if anything.

The sole advantage twitter has compared to facebook updates is the openness of it's data and api's. If facebook took a less restrictive stance to both, you would see twitter vanish.

lyndellnm · 4 months ago

IMO this points to the different attitudes teenagers and adults have to technology. It's second nature for teenagers use technology to communicate and build relationships. For older people, technology is probably more about dissemination of information. From this POV, it make sense that adults will use Twitter, which is all about sending and choosing to receive information that is of interest. Adults also are probably more wary of technology for disseminating personal information, so use Twitter more for information / professional purposes. Teenagers, arguably, don't really have this need, and further, use technology for fun. Us adults primarily use technology for work! So, teenagers will use social media that are purely social. A-la Facebook. Of course, I'm just surmising all of this. No proof or research whatsoever. But it makes sense to me...

Joseph Earl · 4 months ago

1) Twitter is not like Facebook, it's useful for bite-size bits of info from random people but not carrying on real-world conversations or organizing events
2) Teens like pictures. So do I. Twitter is generally devoid of useful ones.
3) You and others somehow seem to be under the misguided impression Twitter is god's gift and is going to revolutionize the world, end world poverty etc. It's not, and any intelligent person realizes its limitations
4) Maybe they have better things to do, ie real world friends, and aren't bothered about things like publicity
5) Twitter is filled with people spouting crap. Messages filled with just the name of trending topics (they're on the sidebar, duh), badly informed opinions, and its a lot harder to avoid them than on Facebook
5) No real work or information sharing can be done in 140 characters.

I use Twitter as a publicity tool for my website and work, it's okay but it's not that great, I only use it because lots of people already did.

Stu Carter · 4 months ago

Should consider that the survey is somewhat flawed. Teens should not be revealing details about their age to surveys, and if they do, they probably don't tell the truth.

I suspect most teens are tweeting on cell phones, and not using tweetdeck on a pc.

And its been pointed out, famous people that teens want to know about have massive followings. I would suggest that its better to have one teen twitterer that reads tweets but seldom sends them, it better than 20 spam accounts.

abijah · 4 months ago

Teens don't tweet because of the cost of text messaging. Didn't you guys watch the building43 video last week.

Trisha · 4 months ago

Another reason we >25s prefer twitter to FB is cuz, with our busy lives, 140ch is more than enough for us to say what we want, keep in touch and move on. The occasional Tweetpic also helps :-)

jenn · 4 months ago

amazing...now this is one way to piss them all off and use twitter just to spite you. we're going to see the fail whale in about ten minutes.

Amy · 4 months ago

Do you have to have a data package on your phone to be able to Twit? or can it just go by txt?

Jennifer · 4 months ago

I tweet all the time. I have Twitter on my laptop (internet, obviously), desktop, cell phone, and iPod. I don't claim to be an expert in anything. I have connected with many people and have more followers than people I follow (a big thing amongst those I know on Twitter, not supposed to happen unless you're a celeb).

I tweet about my life, my relationships, my dramas, whatever I feel like. I tweet about a TV show I'm watching, my love and respect for Demi Lovato, or a revelation about some celebrity my friends and I came to.

I get @replies from people I don't even know going through the same thing, thinking along the same lines. It makes connections. And you realize you're not alone in that fight with your best friend or having that guy check you out only to go to make out with some other girl. There are other people out there who know how you feel.

I think it's ridiculous that people are saying Teens Don't Tweet because we have nothing to say. We have a lot to say. Is anyone ready to listen?

Jennifer Crane · 4 months ago

I tweet all the time. I have Twitter on my laptop (internet, obviously), desktop, cell phone, and iPod. I don't claim to be an expert in anything. I have connected with many people and have more followers than people I follow (a big thing amongst those I know on Twitter, not supposed to happen unless you're a celeb).

I tweet about my life, my relationships, my dramas, whatever I feel like. I tweet about a TV show I'm watching, my love and respect for Demi Lovato, or a revelation about some celebrity my friends and I came to.

I get @replies from people I don't even know going through the same thing, thinking along the same lines. It makes connections. And you realize you're not alone in that fight with your best friend or having that guy check you out only to go to make out with some other girl. There are other people out there who know how you feel.

I think it's ridiculous that people are saying Teens Don't Tweet because we have nothing to say. We have a lot to say. Is anyone ready to listen?

Brandon · 4 months ago

I try to get my friends to get a twitter and some don't even know what it is or say it's stupid. I don't have a facebook but I do have a Mysace and the same people who say it's stupid are leaving comments on my profile and doing status updates. (basically a tweet) Like I read in other posts about this issue, 16% of teenage twitter users are the smart teenagers.

Jared O'Toole · 4 months ago

No surprise here. When I was 16 I dont think I would have cared about twitter. There are always some people from a demographic using it but twitter is really about meeting new people and is used for promoting your expertise on a subject. At 16 I just hung out with friends 24/7 and wasn't worried about meeting someone across the country just because we had similar interests.

drale · 4 months ago

Well, in a Verizon commercial I saw recently it was the dad and mom using the social networking on their phones. The dad was twittering that he was sitting on the patio and the son (who was standing right there) said I KNOW!!

sharon · 4 months ago

I'm not surprised. Twitter may have been designed as a way to keep in touch with a group of friends, but most people I know are using it to create a collection of experts in topics of interest. Teenagers already know everything, so why would they be interested in hearing from experts.

Andrew Pass · 4 months ago

@beverlycornell has nicely explained the difference between Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. Facebook is a lot like a high school. Twitter is like a cocktail party and Linkedin is a board room. Teens are in high school so they like FB.

Miguel · 4 months ago

I use twitter to get and share news/events/tips and more, most of my friends, who are in their 19's and 20's (I just turned 21) think that twitter is stupid and useless because they think that twitter is about answering the question "What are you doing?", so they say "why would people care about what am doing", in other words they don't get what twitter is really all about.

They use facebook though, and imo, facebook is useless compared to twitter, all people do is play games while in class and answer the question "what are you doing?", I don't benefit by using facebook but I do by using twitter.

Calvin Chin · 4 months ago

Love this article. I am 15 and I tweet quite often and I really agree with your comment on how teens use social networking for their friends and don't really see the need to understand the current events like #iranelection. I honestly will say that I've wondered about if but haven't bother understanding it (bad, I know). But though I came into Twitter knowing none of my friends used it, I found some and was happy, but now I realize that all the fun is coming from talking to people I don't even know!
I find myself trying to get my friends to use Twitter not only in person but on Facebook! Just yesterday after reading Paul Abdul's tweets on not returning to idol I posted something on Facebook relating to that and made sure I emphasized "found out via Twitter!". I want my friends to join, not so I feel at home with people I know but rather so they can try something new and jump out of the box.

Facebook is fun, and once you come to the realization that it's not confusing (after days of using it.. well that varies), a lot of people are unwilling to change to something else too.

Dallas · 4 months ago

I am a teen Twitter user. However, I am not a normal teen. I am a geek (or a neek as what my friends call me). I love Twitter because I can follow what is going on in the technology industry. I have seen one of my friends try Twitter as well, but they don't really see the point of it.

redwall_hp · 4 months ago

I'm 17.5, and I use Twitter prolifically. (I also blog about web development though, so that may be part of it.) To put it bluntly, most of the people I know in real life don't have a clue about the things I'm interested in (web development, blogging, etc.). They don't "get" Twitter, but they're all using Facebook.

As a result I check in on Facebook once or twice a week, and keep my Twitter client open all day.

Chris Jones · 4 months ago

Twitter - especially in conjunction with TweetDeck - is a business tool far more than a social one. It's much harder to use on a mobile device than Facebook is; at least, it is much harder to use for what I use it for, and what a large number of my cohort use it for. Twitter is like the phone, but it's almost entirely computer-based. When I'm not at the computer, I'm not on Twitter. Teens are at their computers less than adults. Seems pretty simple to me.

Cadence · 4 months ago

I work with teens on a daily basis. They don't Twitter. They get most of their information from their friends so they text. They go to Facebook and MySpace to check on their friends. They don't tend to use the other features of these networks like being part of groups because very little outside of their social circle has bearing on their lives. Not to say that teens aren't interested in the outside world. I work with well-informed, highly intelligent teens. But even they tend to be less global in their approach to their social lives.

Marco_Mo · 4 months ago

I het it now... jejeje

Hannah Banana · 4 months ago

Yeah Ima teen and I tweet... I think my friends would do it if they knew about it more.... they just haven't seen any commercials/advertisments so they only take what their friends say but their friends don't really know much about twitter eitharrr so... it doesn't really get around.
Plus half of them that do know about it think it's "stupid, confusing, and boring" which is totally senseless because the whole layout of twitter is supposed to be simple & easy to use, filled with intelligent users, and have interesting topics that keep u coming back-at least that's my opinion:)

Hannah Banana · 4 months ago

Yeah Ima teen and I tweet... I think my friends would do it if they knew about it more.... they just haven't seen any commercials/advertisments so they only take what their friends say but their friends don't really know much about twitter eitharrr so... it doesn't really get around.
Plus half of them that do know about it think it's "stupid, confusing, and boring" which is totally senseless because the whole layout of twitter is supposed to be simple & easy to use, filled with intelligent users, and have interesting topics that keep u coming back-at least that's my opinion:)

Shawna · 4 months ago

One thing that I've heard from teens is that, in order for this to be useful, fun, etc. to tweet then they need access to it in real time. The most practical place to get that is on their cell phone. But think about how many times your cell phone would buzz, beep or whatever if you had it tied to your Twitter. One guy told me that Twitter caused his cell phone to "blow up" with texts and alerts and it got annoying.

My Twitter rec. for ALL of us is to let us hide messages from certain people like you can on Facebook. I know there's tools that can help with sorting and filtering, but for Twitter to stay viable it's got to become a bit less cluttered and more user-friendly.

David · 4 months ago

Twittering sucks, its just another way to keep people from real life interaction.
-CubaColombianito aka CuCo aka David.

charcharade · 4 months ago

It really is a question of maturity, as well. So many teens need the excitement of photo albums and events and the whole shebang to be interested in a website, whereas the simplicity of being able to communicate and connect without all those barriers is relatively unappealing.

Why tweet when you can create an event and invite everyone to your party that way? Why post a twitpic when you can have a photo album? And of course, as you stated, certainly the snowball effect is a massive role in this.

I remember when I started out on Twitter, maybe two of my friends were doing it, and at first I was rather bored. Then I realized that not only was there hundreds of thousands of people I didn't know, but also some celebrities and television networks I did know. So I started following them. That must have been what kept me going in those first few months.

The most attractive thing, I think, is that you can ask a group of people something at the same time - and get a response within minutes! So much more efficient than a group text message or calling one person after another. This is one fantastic thing about Twitter that I'm suprised other teenagers haven't been drawn in by.

Although true, the idea to "add features or a culture that provides new value for teenagers who primarily want to talk with friends" makes me want to vomit. I fear nothing more than that Twitter will cave to the desire to please my generally stupid demographic, thus destroying how beautifully simplistic Twitter is for it's users. This is the primary reason I think Twitter's usage by teenagers is really about maturity - they're uninterested by the wave of trending topics, they don't care about the "big picture", and so they stick to Facebook and Myspace.

I say let them stay on Facebook and Myspace. I may be 18 myself, but I ran screaming from the Myspace train and use Facebook sparingly in comparison with my usage of Twitter because of the clean designs, global discussions and ease of use. No fidgeting with my profile picture every two weeks for me!

Let the Myspace-crawling teenagers grow up and discover Twitter or keep to their bulletins.

Naturalwealth · 4 months ago

I am sure that when "teens" get older they will be tweeting more, it's just that most people as you say are tweeting about world events and business and such...I am sure that twitter won't lose any ground, cause these guys will grow up and be tweeting just like the rest of us on different things, hey, most of them are in school anyhow, remember???

Naturalwealth · 4 months ago

I am sure that when "teens" get older they will be tweeting more, it's just that most people as you say are tweeting about world events and business and such...I am sure that twitter won't lose any ground, cause these guys will grow up and be tweeting just like the rest of us on different things, hey, most of them are in school anyhow, remember???

Byron Bache · 4 months ago

"...why Generation Y has not embraced microblogging..."? Generation Y and 'teens' are not interchangeable terms. Averaging out the various definitions, the youngest members of Gen Y are currently around seventeen years old. It's been my personal experience that Gen Y (those aged 17-29) make up the bulk of active Twitter users.

Dan Bell · 4 months ago

Come on lets get real!
Most teens don't feel safe or are banned from using twitter, cuz there is too many sex spammers. Most of the teens that are using have the protection mode on. Take out the trash and I'll let my teen use it. Until then, forget about it.

-Dan

Laurence · 4 months ago

First of all, just gonna throw it out there, I'm 15 years old, female.
I started using twitter for it's interesting information base. I can find information about the latest games, a car crash, my favorite youtuber through twitter faster than anything else. While it's incredibly hard for me to take it anywhere because I do not own a blackberry, Iphone, Itouch, etc. and following even 50 people through Sms can send my text messaging bill through the roof, I love twitter. I reccomend it to all my friends, and it's frustrating when they say it's stupid, or they don't care, or whatnot. The way Twitter is being faced by the teen population is that it's for getting news, for business people and more or less adults. I know it's not, but that is the overwhelming feedback I tend to get from people. I guess I just don't fit the demographic of kids who don't care about what's going on. I'm a person who craves news, to know what is going on without having to rely on some news anchor. While I'd really like to see it grow to that 12-17 age group, I would also hate to see it get what I like to call "The Teen Effect" which is essentially when websites get way too excited about their teen demographic and end up trying to please them by changing the whole website's real meaning to keep them there. I've seen good websites become just another Myspace, Facebook because of it, and it sucks, because then people like me lose another place to kinda escape the immature teen life of friends and drama to get a taste of the real world instead.
Hope my view helps at all.

mainegirl9171 · 4 months ago

Tweeting requires complex metacognitive and metalinguistic skills to reformulate and summarize information and is very abstract in audience.

Kimberly Garcia · 4 months ago

my 18 yr old started using Twitter after I got her the new SidekickLX Orchid for graduation. And in contrast to "mom" her actual usage is light. She does however follow people to get her updates. She says that EPSN, CNN, Chicago Tribune, is great for breaking news. I told her to follow Mashable because I learn more tech news here than anywhere else. CNET is so yesterday!

Daniel Francavilla · 4 months ago

Teens do, and will tweet. Just find a way to explain to them what exactly Twitter is and advise what they 'should' and 'could' use it for, and there you have it. Especially with Twitter being accessible on cell phones via text and the great BlackBerry and iPhone apps, it's going to be so easy once it catches on. Their peers don't all have to be on it - even if they make an account and only follow celebrities or their favourite brands.

Dennis Jernberg · 4 months ago

Facebook/MySpace/Bebo/etc. = Social Networking.
Twitter = Social Messaging.

Teens tend to be oriented toward themselves and their friends. They're content with social networking and private messaging (IM & SMS). That's why they dominate the social networks. If they're on Twitter, they're more likely to make their accounts private and set up "follow networks" of people they know (plus the usual celebrities and the like).

Adults are more outward oriented. They're better able (on average) to understand social messaging and thus use it. Hence, their overrepresentation on Twitter.

Of course, as with email, Twitter is dominated by noise coming from "social media" types, online marketers, corporations following the latest fad, and of course spambots. But we filter this out. If we don't autofollow, that is...

midasethan · 4 months ago

I think as you so rightly put it, the teens find it boring except when they are following their celebrity or someone whom they highly regard.
Facebook has so much more other interesting applications that people can use!

maxrichardson · 4 months ago

I'm not a Teen, I'm 22 however I've taught my younger sister who's 14 and she's even making money off it now, linking adults to Twitter productivity tools such as http://tweetspinner.co.uk - Go Sis!

Sunny Singh · 4 months ago

I'm 16... I find this very odd. I thought more teenagers used Twitter than adults, it'd seem like the obvious statistic.

HotForWords · 4 months ago

Teens DON'T VISIT THE TWITTER WEBSITE! THEY ACCESS IT VIA APPLICATIONS!

What is it going to take the writers of Mashable to realize that looking at the stats of the Twitter website DO NOT give you an accurate indicator of how many people actually use Twitter. I have not been to the Twitter website in months, yet I use Twitter ALL DAY LONG!

Marina

Michael · 4 months ago

This does hit the mark mostly, as a teen twitterer myself most of the points hit the mark exactly.

HotForWords · 4 months ago

Teens DON'T VISIT THE TWITTER WEBSITE! THEY ACCESS IT VIA APPLICATIONS!

What is it going to take the writers of Mashable to realize that looking at the stats of the Twitter website DO NOT give you an accurate indicator of how many people actually use Twitter. I have not been to the Twitter website in months, yet I use Twitter ALL DAY LONG!

Marina

Thaddaeus Groat · 4 months ago

if most twitter users are over 25, that means that Miley Cyrus's followers....

oh for pete's sake.

Oh, and I'm a teen who twitters. I have a few friends who also do, but mostly it's just linked to facebook. That's what I do, but I love twitter for following my favorite bands and keeping up on important new. I follow a few blogs as well.

Eleanor Tan · 4 months ago

I interviewed a teenager yesterday about his likelihood to engage with a particular company through Twitter. His response was that Twitter is 'for old people who don't know how to use Facebook'. I think there is a perception amongst youth that Twitter is simplistic (i.e., all you can do is update your status) whereas Facebook is seen as a one-stop-shop and makes it easy to share photos, update your status, make comments, etc. While you can do all these things on Twitter, it may also have something to do with the Google vs Bing adoption - i.e. we're already using Facebook, all my friends are on it.. why switch now?

Bailey Stonecipher · 4 months ago

I'm 15 I've been tweet for 6 months and I love it! It allows me to keep up with events, get interesting perspectives on ideas all on a program that doesn't swallow up my whole day. 2 of my close friends use twitter, neither of them have posted more than 5 tweets. Many of my friends who has looked into Twitter comment and say that "there's nothing to do on twitter." Twitter-users, myself included, are happily content to read other users opinions and share quick thoughts. In my limited experience, teenagers, use social networking sights as "something to do" and if your only aspiration when logging onto twitter is to "do something" then your not really using it very well. TWITTER SAVED ME! I could never get into FACEBOOK or MYSPACE because they require so much OF MY ALREADY CONSTRICTED TIME!!

Sara · 4 months ago

I am a teen on twitter, and I originally joined because...hmm...oh, to have frequent updates on my blog, by using the twitter ap, without having to go to my blog. To me the tweets served as 'miniblogs'--things i wanted to write about but were too small or insignificant to make a whole post about. Now, I use it as my main news source, and to check out the lives of my internet friends :) .

Chris Bell · 4 months ago

Why should Twitter need to get this demographic? The suggestions given to make Twitter appeal to teens are basically saying, "Turn Twitter into something like Facebook." Despite traditional media personalities awe of the service, Twitter is a news/business tool. Some use it for personal things, but the majority seem to use it to promote their professional/academic interests. Don't mess it up trying to appeal to some kind of common denominator. Long tail - niche apps - leave it be.

pdparticle · 4 months ago

this is all bullshit crap.i am 15.i use it for my own business.

chris · 4 months ago

" - Add features or a culture that provides new value for teenagers who primarily want to talk with friends.

Hi, I'm 16 and I use twitter, and I REALLY hope twitter doesn't change to incorporate things that make it "friend focused", because in my opinion that isn't the point of twitter. You wanna talk to your own little circle of friends? Use facebook or myspace, your mobile phone.

I didn't join twitter because I wanted to find another platform to chat with my friends about inside jokes and other things that only we could possibly understand. On twitter you can share information and quick thoughts that ANYONE can view, not just your approved "friend list". It's not about staying inside a cocoon of people that you know and only swimming in your own social pool.

It's true, we teenagers are a self centred bunch. By and large, we don't give a damn about a lot of things that we probably should care about. I don't mean to offend teenagers who do, but it's generally true. We don't wanna get on twitter, it doesn't sound interesting "Huh? 140 characters? Retweet? News? WTF?!"

But there ARE those teenagers who do use twitter, and we use it because it's NOT like Facebook.

pdparticle · 4 months ago

true.facebook i am starting to hate it!

HaTeTWITTER · 4 months ago

Seriously. Who wants to see what famous people are doing every minute!
Oooooh check this out...aplusk are boning!
(okay...that would be awesome)
Other than that...wtf. there is nothing to do.
Facebook you can chat to people with immediate responses and view photos.
Facebooks outline is not so dark either, Twitter just feels like you can't do anything and write anything.
It is retarded to because if you don't have any followers, there is no point of having a twitter...BECAUSE YOU CANNOT TALK TO ANYBODY!!!!!!
That is the whole point of a social networking website!!
You must be a loser if all you want to do is see what famous people are doing.

pdparticle · 4 months ago

this is the biggest problem with teens.THEY MIS UNDERSTAND THE POINT OF TWITTER!SHEEZ

Aadil Pitafi · 4 months ago

I'm a teen and I use Twitter, but none of my friends seem to be attracted to it. It's true that every teens doesn't use Twitter.

Matthew · 4 months ago

What about the school aspect of this? Teens are in school 8-10 hours a day and 9 months a year. They don't need to tweet because the majority of their social network is already there in one big building and everyone knows what everyone else is doing.

Adults on the other hand all work different jobs, some requiring travel, some relocating, etc. Adults use twitter to stay in touch with each other as well as staying up to date with current events. Instead of waiting to get home and call a friend to ask about their day or watch the news, they can just log in at work or check our phone and find out then and there. Teens on the other hand just have to look down the hallway!

Matthew · 4 months ago

What about the school aspect of this? Teens are in school 8-10 hours a day and 9 months a year. They don't need to tweet because the majority of their social network is already there in one big building and everyone knows what everyone else is doing.

Adults on the other hand all work different jobs, some requiring travel, some relocating, etc. Adults use twitter to stay in touch with each other as well as staying up to date with current events. Instead of waiting to get home and call a friend to ask about their day or watch the news, they can just log in at work or check our phone and find out then and there. Teens on the other hand just have to look down the hallway!

pdparticle · 4 months ago

every single teen has misunderstood the point of twitter besides for a handful

Aleksandre Asatiani · 4 months ago

Well, I am 22 years old "teen", :) and Twitter is my favourite social network. In contrast I do not enjoy Facebook much.

I pretty much agree with the post. In addition I would like to say that, Twitter has image of something between pointless and complicated. And at first glance, when one registers, the question appears: What should I do here?

While for example Facebook is more straightforward: go get friends, post couple of pictures and join the group of your favourite movie.

In Twitter though, from one hand, the idea is to answer the question "What are you doing?". But... in the other hand, you won't get much success if you post only that...

So, people just get bored, they are lazy to figure out what's going on and finally they quit...

Matthew Limpede · 4 months ago

What about the school aspect of this? Teens are in school 8-10 hours a day and 9 months a year. They don't need to tweet because the majority of their social network is already there in one big building and everyone knows what everyone else is doing.

Adults on the other hand all work different jobs, some requiring travel, some relocating, etc. Adults use twitter to stay in touch with each other as well as staying up to date with current events. Instead of waiting to get home and call a friend to ask about their day or watch the news, they can just log in at work or check our phone and find out then and there. Teens on the other hand just have to look down the hallway!

Adam Haider · 4 months ago

Ben I think you raise an important point, something I noticed when I tried to get my friends to join Twitter when I first signed up. Teens seem reluctant to join because they just don't get what the benefits of using Twitter are.

As you said, most users will prefer to use Facebook for status updating.

From my own professional perspective, if Twitter wants to attract more teenagers to use their service what they ought to do and should have done is provide visually through a video or flash animation, how users may use Twitter in conjunction with their social networks and why it's worth using.

Corina Penn-Bartoo · 4 months ago

This may be naive of me to assume this, but could it perhaps be simply that there are fewer under-25s than older age groups? America's population is aging, and most industrialized nations are doing the same. Twitter is used primarily in places where potable water, shelter and internet access are available and in fact taken for granted. So I would like to see the percentage of teens in the general population who use Twitter, as well as the percentages of other age groups, rather than the percentage of Twitter users in each age group. Statistics can be tricky like that.

Carl · 4 months ago

Are we actually surprised teenagers don't like what their parents like?

di butler · 4 months ago

I am 43, really like Twitter because I hook up with ppl interesting in the same political stuff and lifestyle as mine. My daughter who is 21, dislikes Twitter but loves Facebook, which I hate! This article is of course speaking in generalities, some teen tweet, look at the Jonas Bros, Miley and Demi, etc, but most prefer FB or MS. Makes sense. It is a different mindset when you are older.

Elad Kehat · 4 months ago

Great post. Thanks for providing insights on the subject.
One comment though: "Oh, I guess that’s because you aren’t on Twitter" is kind of irrelevant. Unlike Facebook, you don't have to be "on" Twitter to get the news. You can search and look at trending topics without actually being a member. That's the no.1 advantage of Twitter imo, but may also make it unnecessary for the non-contributing 90% of the crowd to sign-in.

Matthew Lowery · 4 months ago

I'm 13 and I use it, although I'm a nerd lol.
I think if they had a better communication for friends then it would bring in people.

Johny Ho · 4 months ago

Have to agree with most of Ben's assessments, it actually grounded some of the the thoughts I had after reading Pete's initial posting.

diana · 4 months ago

this article makes me want to end my account with twitter!

Candace · 4 months ago

Initially, the word Twitter sounds stupid in it's self, As though you try to get with your girlfriend, but she only lets you twitter around with her instead.

Secondly, many people are into their own little trips, and could care less about Paula Abdul leaving American Idol in real time, which I and possible teens do not understand anyway. Within time, if you have a T.V. as most teens want on 24/7, you will know Paula is leaving American Idol; and thus, you will vow to give up watching it without her. Idealistically, you will write long copy about how it will not be the same. You will write a poem about it.

Thirdly, tweeting shows no moving media immediately. Teenagers like video games---there is nothing visual for that instant gratification leaving a teen cold. Fourthly, teenagers like to text, and now. with pictures, games, music, alarm clocks, flash lights, internet, built into a phone----Twitter is like typing on my old 1903 typewriter that you have to use a "I" for the number one on. It is short maybe a paragraph before you have to hit the enter key and your text has nothing special with it. Hitting the typewriter return---boring.

Fifthly, tweeting is what a bird does and it says nothing personal about you you you. Teenagerhood is about forming an identity; they want recognition; and thus, even the words My Space and Facebook give you that.

Sixly, I am 53 years old and a lot of teen boys hung out here in the 1990's, with my two sons so I think I have some insight on why they do not tweet. I just do not get it either. I just go there to B. S. peeps man like hey man try to speak your mind homie, but you better do it in a few sentences---and teenagers are long copy like me----53 going on 16.
www.poetrypoem.com/heartunes
tunes from the heart by poet cj
TEENS WITHOUT TWEETS

"(Your face a book...
...Reading you in my space...
...Let's twitter around...)"



You may be young
And stay up late on the net
You may want fun
The place I've seen you get it most
The name most teens I know will host
Is in your face
It's Myspace
Neither twitter nor facebook win---
For teens it's, "the place for friends"


8/6/2009 000333000 cj

wto · 4 months ago

Twitter was created by geeks, for geeks and it's promoted by geeks...or pretending to be.

Teenagers are not geeks and they don't care about all the chit chat around tweeter.

It took 2 years for twitter to be known and start to be kind of popular...6 months for facebook.

Wanna be journalist are using twitter to make themselves popular worlwide.

Kids just need a community, which always start from school friends, then friends of friends...not the worldwide kind of fame that you geeks are running after

erika · 4 months ago

Wow. This is a heated debate.
I am a teenager and I use my twitter frequently.
I know it's not popular with my friends- but I find it easier to talk to a lot of people this way. Though the restriction on the word limit gets annoying, I like it. It's pretty easy to get the hang of.
x erika

Nodyn Yzabel Go · 4 months ago

i am only thirteen and i do tweet! in fact, i already have 684 tweets. well, twitter is like, as my friend puts it, "a public diary" because a user can tell other people what he/she is doing. But twitter is not boring for me and some of my friends. in fact, we are active in twitter! =)

Mikkel · 4 months ago

Now I'm 14 years old.

And well there's lots of teens who is tweeting. The reason why is there isn't that many teens compared to Facebook and MySpace, is because Twitter is used by many entrepreneurs, and most of the entrepreneurs are +25. Not everybody, but lots of them are.

And I think Twitter is more user-friendly than Facebook and MySpace

Coleen · 4 months ago

im not a teenager but i am in the under 25 demographic. i have one friend who uses twitter and it is someone in the PR industry. all of my friends do not see the point of twitter when you can do the same exact things with facebook and then some. the features of twitter seem to be for a. professionals or b. people who like an audience of (mostly strangers---at least for people our age).

Coleen · 4 months ago

im not a teenager but i am in the under 25 demographic. i have one friend who uses twitter and it is someone in the PR industry. all of my friends do not see the point of twitter when you can do the same exact things with facebook and then some. the features of twitter seem to be for a. professionals or b. people who like an audience of (mostly strangers---at least for people our age).

Matti V · 4 months ago

A big thing about popularity is the learning curve. Twitter is simple, robust and easy to learn, doesn't take a lot of time to master, whereas Facebook is a time-consuming swamp of options and possibilities.

Most of the "older" generation
a) don't have the time to Facebook
b) don't have the "Internet know-how" to Facebook. It's just too difficult for people who had to learn to use the Internet on adulthood.

I reckon the provocativeness of b).

Jay · 4 months ago

We all talk about networking and how these services are about pulling everyone together. So maybe that's just it, Facebook is the largest network. People have established their networks on Fbook and the thought of starting all over again is daunting. I'm not sure that, come the right age, people will start switching. I think once Fbook opens itself up and duplicates some of the functionality of Twitter..watch out.

Kevin Baughen · 4 months ago

I like the post - interactive and definitely delivered with the right amount of tongue in cheek. But I havea question? Are these stats global, US or UK based? I wonder if there are any differences across cultures in the same way internet usage per se differs between countries?

Casey · 4 months ago

I am 19 and have no interest in Twitter.

Carolyn Wood · 4 months ago

Rt now if u are texting 24/7 u really don't need to tweet.

jojo · 4 months ago

I am 49 yrs old and not about to tweet either. I understand someone making a buck off it. I won't be. I actually do have an expertise of sorts.. it just happens to be more along the lines of charity. But I think twitter seems to reinforce some sense of importance that isn't really there. When a kid is on facebook they ARE important to their friends. What I don't get is that adults really get satisfaction from tweeting. Even this post is really a marginal exercise personally. I don't have to revisit this to see if someone responds.. because in fact I care for the moment about this but not generally. To spend so much time tweeting.. and being "sucessful" at it really makes me wonder how long people will feel their importance for the amount of attention required to being that way. Kids say it's stupid.. I tend to agree. With facebook the time spent does make them relevant to people they care about. Twitter doesn't payback that way .. it's shallow by comparison. However a married person on facebook with numerous "relevant" friends of the opposite sex can be more trouble than it's worth so maybe shallow has it's place. :)

megan · 4 months ago

It's really simple, teens and youth TEXT nonstop to friends and others for updates on things they deem important. Why goto Tweet? Facebook is a bigger bulletin board to converse, like MySpace if you have major issues or topics. Tweeting overall as a polling of the community psyche is more relevant than millions of teenage Tweets "OMG Bobby just smiled @ME o-0".

Tweeting fits the busier adult life style where small talk isn't the biggest thing so much as exchanging ideas and events live. Adults need to use their phones more for business and not texting and Tweeting allows for checking friend/acquaintances live updates quicker the Facebook.

Why worry about size of Tweet youth demographic use when it's a matter of them probably growing or maturing into using it as texting becomes ridiculously cumbersome once they finish college. Keep the mindless chatter of youth texting in the cellphone sphere until they have something of worth to say and announce in the Tweet bandwidth. Let them peer pressure to Tweet as they grow up.

Jeff · 4 months ago

I think teens don't tweet because it really is for businesses to be able to communicate with their customers or for business professionals to share their knowledge with like-minded individuals, it's not really meant for meaningless updates like "just ate cereal, going to school" like the updates that are posted on facebook. Twitter is more of a professional tool to reach an audience with information that might be actually useful other than to share what someone had for breakfast.

tryuo · 4 months ago

You have also to take in account that Twitter is terribly easy to use. I'm not speaking only about the interface, but also the usage ways that is exclatly the same as IRL. Do you all have a notebook where you keep adresses ? No, it's generally some kind of oral tradition and a few post-it to remember it a few time.

This is factoàr has more impact on middle age and elder people that have not the same ease with web concepts. I see many and many people using twitter in a way that could really be more efficient on social network or on social bookmarking. But it seem that many communities have estblished here also beacause it is more easy and nearer from life.

tryuo · 4 months ago

You have also to take in account that Twitter is terribly easy to use. I'm not speaking only about the interface, but also the usage ways that is exclatly the same as IRL. Do you all have a notebook where you keep adresses ? No, it's generally some kind of oral tradition and a few post-it to remember it a few time. This is factoàr has more impact on middle age and elder people that have not the same ease with web concepts. I see many and many people using twitter in a way that could really be more efficient on social network or on social bookmarking. But it seem that many communities have estblished here also beacause it is more easy and nearer from life.

Catherine · 4 months ago

I am a teen on twitter, and I get why teens don't tweet. Twitter does revolve around current events, and many teens don't care about that. That said, the reason many of my friends don't tweet is because they see it as purely vapid and superficial - i.e. "Why would anybody care about what I ate for breakfast?"

Then again, why I tweet is a little uncoventional for teenagers. I'm an artist, and I use it to promote my business and blog (which in itself promotes my business).

Lynds · 4 months ago

.

Lynds · 4 months ago

I have Facebook; I don't need another account. If I want to look up specific news topics I will go to bbc.co.uk or another news service website. Updates on what people are doing at the current moment are useless to me. Celebrities are also loosing their appeal. I don't really care what Demi and Ashton are doing. Facebook lets me see what my friends have been up to, which is much more important to me as a 21 year old.

Adam · 4 months ago

I'm in the under 25 age group, and I think that Twitter is boring. It seems to me like Twitter only offers "status updates" similar to Facebook, but Facebook offers more like photo sharing and chat. As mentioned in the article, you're friends are more likely to see what you have to say on Facebook than they are on Twitter. Also, with so many businesses jumping on the "follow us on Twitter" bandwagon, I'm afraid of Twitter just filling up with ads and useless information.

Ed Madinya · 4 months ago

This article makes sense. The figures don't suggest anything besides the facts. When I was a teen, it's true, I only cared about my friends because who else did I have? Parents were corny. And, I had no profession, yet. What else? Oh, the 25-54 dem is a very large. Why complain about that. L8r. Rock on Twitter Teens!

Ed Madinya · 4 months ago

This article makes sense. The figures don't suggest anything besides the facts. When I was a teen, it's true, I only cared about my friends because who else did I have? Parents were corny. And, I had no profession, yet. What else? Oh, the 25-54 dem is a very large. Why complain about that. L8r. Rock on Twitter Teens!

Non teenager · 4 months ago

TEENAGERS NOT USING TWITTER IS FINE.

WOMAN PROBABLY DON'T WATCH BOXING AS MUCH AS MEN, SHOULD THEY MAKE BOXING MORE APPEALING TO WOMEN?

DIFFERENT DEMOGRAPHICS BEHAVE DIFFERENTLY, THATS A GOOD THING.

Sterling Lambert · 4 months ago

being a teen-tweeter, so to speak, i think the argument that twitter is different than myspace and facebook because its not about a friend base is a little unfounded...in twitter, the accumulation of a large following equates to an elevated status of coolness, whats the difference between the sites there? more follwers=more awesomeness on twitter; more friends= more awesomeness on facebook and myspace. the rest of the article is spot on though, thanks :)

C.S. · 4 months ago

Since when was "under 25" a teen? I should be flattered.

The results don't surprise me because I envision engaged Twitter users as those who understand its sophistication as a social media tool, whether for personal branding, marketing, information gathering, microfinance, etc. I feel good identifying as someone who uses Twitter because of how it reflects on me as a young adult.

Dan · 4 months ago

I think it has to do with the over 25 crowd largely sitting at computers/on blackberries/iphones all day at work while the under 25 crowd has schoolwork and classes to attend where they use notebooks rather than netbooks.

Michael · 4 months ago

Here's a report BY a teenager on why teenagers don't use Twitter.

Michael · 4 months ago

Here's a report BY a teenager on why teenagers don't use Twitter. http://izebranz.blogspot.com/2009/08/why-teenag...

Becky Kridner · 4 months ago

Please don't add 3rd Party apps to Twitter. That is the main reason I choose to spend time on Twitter rather than Facebook. For the 50th time, I don't want your invite to Pillow Fight, Farmville or the Huggy Huggerson club!

Amanda · 4 months ago

I'm 19.. so still a teen and I love and use Twitter constantly. Twitter has allowed me to win concert tickets, hear about specific events that aren't told about anywhere else, get coupons for free food, and know things right as they are happening. Most of my friends haven't embraced Twitter, but I see this as their own loss. If teens don't want valuable information and opportunities FOR FREE, then they are shooting themselves in the foot, and the rest of society shouldn't worry about it.

Nperez · 4 months ago

It's true for the most part. I tried to start but I personally don't know anyone on there. It's not that I don't find things about the world interesting, but I can just read articles.

kosso · 4 months ago

Sorry, but considering that there are zero fields in Twitter for gender, age, race, income, education and offspring, whose ass did Nielsen and Quantcast pull these stats from? If it was a survey, where was it? How big was the sample?

Jeff · 4 months ago

Teens Don't Tweet, because twitter doesn't give them what they want. Facebook gives them what they want. In fact: Facebook has so much that they want, that they will spend hours and hours on it, because they like it so much. Teens want to have a easy and practical way of talking to each other, which Twitter doesn't have, and Facebook does. Teens want to be able to see what other people are saying to each other and see peoples photos. Twitter doesn't do this. Twitter has other redeeming qualities, which is why I have one.

Rita · 4 months ago

Exactly. That's why I love Twitter. You have an audience unlike social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. I use Twitter to reach out to people. It's easy for celebrities to influence people because of their large fan bases. That's what I want to do with Twitter. I hope I can get a lot of followers that way I can find people I really connect with. I hope that when I tweet people will be able to relate to what I have to say. I want to inspire people and one day send out a message of hope.

Rita · 4 months ago

Exactly. That's why I love Twitter. You have an audience unlike social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. I use Twitter to reach out to people. It's easy for celebrities to influence people because of their large fan bases. That's what I want to do with Twitter. I hope I can get a lot of followers that way I can find people I really connect with. I hope that when I tweet people will be able to relate to what I have to say. I want to inspire people and one day send out a message of hope.

Indy · 4 months ago

1) I'm 22 and don't consider myself in the teen category. I have Twitter. None of my friends do. It's really that simple. There's really no point to updating it constantly when the only people who see my tweets also see 18437430473461374380 others.

2) I know Twitter has its value, as I do get a lot of news from the site. However, I do tend to look at it as more of a...let's say...spamming tool.

3) Maybe teens aren't comfortable with the fact that there's tons of people on twitter following thousands, and I mean thousands, of others. Teens are programmed to NOT give out too much information on the web by their parents, to not try to make it easier for people to stalk them and kidnap them, etc. At least with Facebook, you see a profile, a picture of someone's life clearly. It could be fake, but teens probably bet that the guy they knew in second grade has a real profile up. It may be false reassurance, but I'm still wary when some random man follows my tweets and I've never heard of him...and since I hardly update, why would he even want to follow me?

4) Twitter kind of scares me. I don't want to put such personal updates out there. But I do, cause why not? That's what it's for, right? Then I take them down a few days later and curse myself and google for remembering.

It's a love/hate relationship. I want to be a news-guru, a responsible social media person, but as I don't have a brand or business, I just don't feel comfortable putting my tweets out there. I'd much rather post them for all of facebook to see, cause at least I know who will see it. For the most part.

Indy · 4 months ago

Adding to the I agree with the whole iPhone comment. My access to the net is at work or home, on an actual computer. I'm still too poor to afford web services on fancy gadgets. Not to say there aren't a million spoiled rotten brats out there, so hey, what do I know?

Anywho, things like gasoline and groceries are more important to me than the ability to tweet. Maybe someday.

Austin · 4 months ago

As a college student at Syracuse University, I'd say I am pretty well connected. I will be a junior in a few weeks, I'm in a large fraternity, and I have friends in most, if not all, the sororities and other fraternities. I'm also close with a lot of people not within the greek system, and at home, have a solid friend group. How many people do I know that have twitter? Two. One uses it maybe once a month at best to post funny comments that have no authenticity to them, and the other used it for maybe a month or two and then lost interest. On the other hand, how many people do I know WITHOUT a Facebook? One. The answer as to why teens don't use twitter is just as simple as the question twitter aims to answer: "Who Cares?" Chances are, if I post on twitter that I'm going to the mall or to the store, by the time someone sees that post, I'm probably already home from that venture. Twitter accomplishes nothing that can't be solved with a simple sms text or phone call. If someone really wants to know what I'm doing, they'll ask me. Unless you're a celebrity, chances are the only people who care enough to follow you are people you already know. With that in mind, there are countless other ways of communicating that are much more convenient (phone, text, blackberry messenger, Facebook) that I already check or use on a daily (...or hourly, or "minutely") basis that can reach the same goal twitter would, without the hassle or curiosity of wondering if someone just so happened to see my twitter post of what I'm doing.

Teens already went through one social revolution: The move from Myspace to Facebook. Why'd we do it? The same reason google exploded in popularity as a search engine: Simplicity. Myspace was popular at first becuase it opened the can of social media worms. Facebook revolutionized it by doing all the hard work for you. With Facebook, you didn't have to worry about creating html code to make your page look good, embedding games or videos, or suffer from annoying spam posts. Facebook even guided you through the creation of your profile by giving you what topics to explain about yourself. Once apps were added to enhance the Facebook experience, they did so in a controlled manner so that they were prevented from taking over one's entire profile page or becoming excessively annoying. Now, just like you google something if you want to find out about it, you Facebook someone if you want to get to know them. Twitter doesn't offer anything your Facebook status can't do. In fact, Twitter basically took Facebook's status feature and turned it into a website. I can either go to Facebook and see pictures and all about that person AND what they're doing, or I can go to Twitter and see just what they're doing with some pictures thrown in there. In essence, Twitter doesn't offer anything that's already available via other social media outlets. Although it is very simple, it doesn't offer us everything we're looking for. After already undergoing the massive move from Myspace to Facebook, the last thing teens want to do is start all over again and transition to Twitter, only to have less features available.

So what's going to happen?
I don't think Twitter will ever catch on with my generation. It serves no point for us. However, as the statistics show, adults find it very useful. If you look at the statistics for Facebook, I bet you will find them to be inverse of that of Twitter. While statistics for teens on Twitter are lacking, they are booming on Facebook. For the older generations which skipped the Myspace and Facebook fiasco, they are now just catching on to the social media era and naturally choose Twitter because it's the latest thing out, and very simple (all you have to try and figure out is how to post something limited to xxx characters, and not worry about creating a whole profile). As for the younger generations just coming up into the social media world, I think Twitter has a very good chance of catching on with them, as they will be open to exploring many of the available social media outlets of today and will certainly be curious about why Twitter is littered all over the news and internet. Teens have just invested too much time creating and changing their Facebook pages, friending everyone they know, and uploading pictures to remember the times they share. For someone who hasn't done all this, Twitter is a very viable option. But to someone who has, Twitter is just another ploy to waste our time.

homo superior · 3 months ago

I lobbed an observation at Louis Gray the other week about the fact that mainstream tech bloggers throw out these observations, such as Twitter is not about your friends, and that sort of description sticks because you folks are supposed to know what you're talking about without really having done any research on how various groups and subgroups and cultures use Twitter.

For instance, the gay male community's use of Twitter is very much about our friends, and largely not about people we have actually met in meatspace. Sure, we broadcast and share links and information (and porn, ahem) but we also say good morning to each other. Seems also clear that hookups and meetups and tweetups take place, as they do for all sorts of ad-hoc twitter groups and communities.

I don't doubt that there are other micro-communities doing similar things.

The basic thrust of this post, that teens don't tweet, appears correct, but some of the underlying assumptions and tangents are untested and unproven.

homo superior · 3 months ago

I lobbed an observation at Louis Gray the other week about the fact that mainstream tech bloggers throw out these observations, such as Twitter is not about your friends, and that sort of description sticks because you folks are supposed to know what you're talking about without really having done any research on how various groups and subgroups and cultures use Twitter.

For instance, the gay male community's use of Twitter is very much about our friends, and largely not about people we have actually met in meatspace. Sure, we broadcast and share links and information (and porn, ahem) but we also say good morning to each other. Seems also clear that hookups and meetups and tweetups take place, as they do for all sorts of ad-hoc twitter groups and communities.

I don't doubt that there are other micro-communities doing similar things.

The basic thrust of this post, that teens don't tweet, appears correct, but some of the underlying assumptions and tangents are untested and unproven.

Raíssa · 3 months ago

Hi! I am 17, and never thought about it, but your right! Twitter is not what I thought it was when I got in...

Vance · 3 months ago

I'm 18, and I use Twitter, but I use it for precisely the purpose mentioned in the article: I'm an XNA developer, so I use it to update progress on my projects for potential fans/customers.

Ahmed · 3 months ago

being 14 yr old, I find that tech savvy teenagers are more willing to tweet. Teens that have more mature minds that deal with adults easily. Teens that are not about drama, but are willing to share useful information and being able to spell makes teens feel more comfortable at Twitter whilst keeping their personal lives at facebook. Facebook is a better and easier platform because all the tools you need to share are right there and most teens don't have anything to say but private stuff like "going to Melissa's, bbl!!! After that getting pizzaaaaa (:" Twitter is for spreading the news, sharing thoughts that wouldn't be suitable for facebook. Most teens also wouldn't know how to use Twitter probably, if they have no hobby they would spend a few tweets saying "figuring out this Twitter thing" then leave because they don't have anyone to follow, or do not know WHO to follow.this is my input coming from a very socially connected 14 year old who uses wordpress, tumblr, Twitter, facebook and formerly bebo & myspace

@RickHorowitz · 3 months ago

There are lots of products that appeal to adults, but not necessarily to teens; there are lots of products that appeal to teens, but not necessarily to adults. Of those things, there are some that appealed to adults when they were teens, but no longer do; there will be some that do not YET appeal to teens, but will when they become adults.

I'm not sure everything has to appeal to all age groups to remain viable. As teens grow into adulthood, Twitter may become more important to them as a group.

On the other hand, I think you've just shown me that I'm still a teen at heart: after awhile, the appeal of Twitter has worn off for me a little, but I use Facebook several times a week (several times a day if you count just logging in to play Mafia Wars).

Of course, part of that is the difficulty I've had with Twitter actually working correctly when I try to access it. That wore me out really quickly.

@RickHorowitz · 3 months ago

There are lots of products that appeal to adults, but not necessarily to teens; there are lots of products that appeal to teens, but not necessarily to adults. Of those things, there are some that appealed to adults when they were teens, but no longer do; there will be some that do not YET appeal to teens, but will when they become adults.

I'm not sure everything has to appeal to all age groups to remain viable. As teens grow into adulthood, Twitter may become more important to them as a group.

On the other hand, I think you've just shown me that I'm still a teen at heart: after awhile, the appeal of Twitter has worn off for me a little, but I use Facebook several times a week (several times a day if you count just logging in to play Mafia Wars).

Of course, part of that is the difficulty I've had with Twitter actually working correctly when I try to access it. That wore me out really quickly.

Matter3 · 3 months ago

I'm under 25 and don't feel the need to user Twitter. Maybe at some point so I can catch the news, or special releases of stuff but right now I have no need.

Mark · 3 months ago

You don't mention the percentage of people in the actual population that make up each group.
Without looking at those numbers how do you know the relevance?
I don't know the statistics but maybe there are fewer teenagers?
Shouldn't you scale the figures according to the relevant proportions?

Madeleine · 3 months ago

I'm and teen and I do not tweet because I believe it's the biggest waste of time ever. People stereotype us as being lazy and wasting our time on the computer or tv, but tweeting is even worse. I don't think we should promote higher egos in today's society. We already love to talk about ourself and have trouble with empathy, why encourage more me me me? What am I doing, and I am the only important thing so I have to write about myself constantly. Is that really how shallow we all have become? Twitter is basically saying screw altruism and people helping each other for the better of mankind, because nothing around you is important, just yourself. We're in the time of our lives, why waste it when we can be creating amazing human beings?

Ron Stark · 3 months ago

I posted earlier in the thread that the 'twitter concept' and awkwardness of searching the public timeline along with the learning curve discouraged teens from being active in twitter and acts as a filter. This is still true. After being bombarded by teens saying "I'm not THAT slow" I realized I must have mistweeted my thoughts. To grow with the web2.0+ just takes the diligence that few teens have. This is not to say that some do not, just most are focused on other things. I am sorry If I have offended

Ron Stark · 3 months ago

I posted earlier in the thread that the 'twitter concept' and awkwardness of searching the public timeline along with the learning curve discouraged teens from being active in twitter and acts as a filter. This is still true. After being bombarded by teens saying "I'm not THAT slow" I realized I must have mistweeted my thoughts. To grow with the web2.0+ just takes the diligence that few teens have. This is not to say that some do not, just most are focused on other things. I am sorry If I have offended

Stella Wong · 3 months ago

I'm 15. I tweet because I wanna catch up with the news, especially #Iranelection and #Afghanelection .
I guess it's kinda weird for a teen to do that, though :P

JeromeB · 3 months ago

I have some simple explanation (and checked live with 3 people who are between 14 and 22y old):
1) They are not on Twitter because the are on MSN all day !!!! or other instant messaging platform, yahoo etc.
2) They have smaller fingers than us, so we old people type on keyboards while they can keep with T9 predictive phone keyboards that we consider so ridiculous.

Personnally, I still believe twitter is the fast-food of the brain, and being french I almost hate this. but addictive, like Quick Milkshakes (Quick is the French McDonald's, or I shall say Wendy's in fact).

mahimanral · 3 months ago

thanx for this great information.

Emma · 2 months ago

I don't twitter because it just seems pointless. Sure, there's newsy stuff on there, but I can get that elsewhere. It primarily boring facebook status messages, and I don't even like those on *facebook.*

T16 · 1 month ago

Why is it such a problem teens don't tweet? You make it sound like the future of the world balances on whether teens embrace Twitter when if fact we determine the future of the world and if we don't want Twitter, we won't have it - people under 25 drive the internet market. Also, you say Twitter needs to create more social networking and 'apps' but conforming to market pressure or adapting to copy other sites doesn't necessarily change anything - Facebook has always refused to allow users to change the colour of their profile (despite an immense amount of interest) and it rapidly overtook Myspace as the leading social networking site, despite the fact that Myspace offer the afforementioned feature.