Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

Is Twitter Too Public for Teens?

by Caleb Johnson on August 27, 2009 at 10:42 AM

It's hard to think of Twitter as the underdog, but it certainly isn't in the cool crowd. The micro-blogging site is defying long-held beliefs that it takes a teenage army to bring popularity on the Web. That's right: Twitter hasn't caught on with teens, yet.

The New York Times reports only about 11-percent of Twitter users are between the ages of 12 and 17. So, just how has Twitter become a social phenomenon without the younger set? There's no simple answer. Since many people use Twitter for business purposes (like marketing and keeping up with news) some teens view it as 'lame' or too grown-up. Twitter is also a very open and public form of communication, which is something many youngsters avoid, of their own volition or at protective parents' behest.

Another reason for Twitter's popularity with adults, or unpopularity with teens, might just be the simple fact that the users of social networking sites are getting older. The Times reports that a study released Tuesday by Forrester Research found that social networking in the 35- to 54-year-old age bracket increased 60-percent over the last year. Those numbers are hard to ignore, especially when you take into account that the teenage demographic -- which launched social networking sites' popularity -- now makes up only 14-percent of MySpace users and 9-percent of Facebook users.

So, maybe adults aren't as technologically inept as kids would like to think. For Twitter, that's certainly good news. Adults are a more steady demographic, anyway. Besides, pretty soon those kids will grow up and start tweeting, themselves. [From: NYTimes.com]

Tags: demographics, social networking, SocialNetworking, teens, top, twitter

Comments

7

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular