Pew Internet
The number of Americans using Twitter has grown to 15 percent of Internet users, according to a new survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. That’s up only slightly from 13 percent a year earlier, but Pew notes the percentage of daily users has doubled from last year to 8 percent.
Overall, a relatively small share of society is tweeting. This follows an earlier study that said only 2 percent of U.S. adults get campaign news from Twitter. But keep in mind a couple things: 1) “It’s the right 2 percent” — Twitter and its users are influential beyond the network itself, and 2) Twitter pulls better usage rates among some key demographics. From the study:
Several demographic groups stand out as having high rates of Twitter usage relative to their peers:
- African-Americans — Black internet users continue to use Twitter at high rates. More than one quarter of online African-Americans (28%) use Twitter, with 13% doing so on a typical day.
- Young adults — One quarter (26%) of internet users ages 18-29 use Twitter, nearly double the rate for those ages 30-49. Among the youngest internet users (those ages 18-24), fully 31% are Twitter users.
- Urban and suburban residents — Residents of urban and suburban areas are significantly more likely to use Twitter than their rural counterparts.
Earlier: Twitter lessons from Social Media Week (Poynter) | 17 percent of Americans get no news daily (Poynter) | Americans spend just a fraction of online time with news compared to social media (Poynter).
Correction: This headline and story have been updated to reflect the fact that 15 percent of Internet users now use Twitter (not 15 percent of all U.S. adults).
