NYT: Teens not on Twitter. Oh really?
posted on August 26th, 2009
The New York Times published an article citing Twitter usage data to support their notion that teens don’t use Twitter. NYT reported data from comScore that showed that only 11% of Twitter users are between the ages of 12 and 17. To put these figures in a different context, I created this chart based on data from the Pew Internet and American Life Project:
While the researchers at Pew didn’t report statistics regarding the 12-17 year old age group, I find it tough to swallow the assertion by the NYT that teens aren’t driving Twitter use. Coincidentally, the pattern of Twitter use reported by Pew mirrors the pattern of Facebook use reported by various studies.
So why the discrepancy? The NYT reported the statistics based on the Twitter population, whereby Pew reported statistics based on Internet users. Concluding that teens don’t really use Twitter because 12-17 year olds comprise just 11% of the user base is like saying that older people don’t use the local public swimming pool because every time I go, 90% of the people there are younger than 18.
We can say that of Twitter users, there are fewer in the 12-17 year old age group than in other age groups. We can also say that of all Internet users, the proportion of teens on Twitter is larger than other age group.
Rey Junco is an Associate Professor and the Director of Disability Services in the Department of Academic Development and Counseling at Lock Haven University.
Rey Junco’s research focuses on using emerging technologies to help engage and support college students. His books include Connecting to the Net.Generation: What higher education professionals need to know about today’s students and Using emerging technologies to help engage students.
As part of the Net.Generation project, Dr. Junco conducted a large multi-institution survey of student technology use. The Using emerging technologies volume explored, in much more detail, research-based topics such as using social networking sites to help engage students, technology to improve student retention, using blogs to improve student’s writing and marketing skills, and how technology can both help and hurt student mental health.
This blog is dedicated to issues related to using social media in higher education.
