Why is it that everyone gets so excited when a new report comes out suggesting teenagers don’t use Twitter? The latest ammunition is a Nielsen report that only 16% of Twitter.com visitors are under the age of 25.
Sean Moffitt provided a great list of 10 reasons that young people don’t use Twitter, and why. He really hits the nail on the head, providing much-need insight.
My take is teenagers don’t use or need Twitter because they’ve already got an effective and popular micro-messaging system: text messaging. As a result, there’s no need to abandon it for something new and shiny, particularly something their parents are excited about.
It’s as simple as that, although you would think everyone would recognize this reality before getting excited about the dearth of teenagers on Twitter.
That said, just because teenagers aren’t on Twitter yet doesn’t mean they won’t arrive in droves one day. Look at Facebook, which started as a service for university students but now has 10s of millions of older people on board.
2 Comments
I think it's because they realize just how stupid Twitter is. I mean, I have a lot more to say to my friends than 140 characters. Twitter is mostly a link farm and for internet marketers trying to push their new ebook or whatever. It's useless to us teenagers as we don't have credit cards and most of us don't really care (YET) what Iran's doing. Know what I mean?
Thanks for the insight. I think people are so excited about Twitter and its potential that they sometimes fail to understand that it's not the tool for everyone, including (for now) teenagers for a variety of reasons. This is not a bad thing but just an interesting difference in how technology is embraced.