8% Of Americans Use Twitter And More Stats You Need To See

Earlier this year, Twitter boasted that the site had grown to around 190 million users who tweet around 65 million times each day.

These statistics are impressive, but the Pew Research Center has come out with its own numbers that provide some context for Twitter's growth and how far the microblogging service has yet to go before it is mainstream.

According to Pew, 8% of Americans on the Internet use Twitter.

That number is larger among certain groups, including adults between 18 and 29 years old, African-Americans and Latinos, as well as people who live in cities. On an average day, 2% of online adults use Twitter.

Pew notes that the most recent survey was a follow-up to previous research which found that, in September 2010, 24% of Internet users said they "use the internet to use Twitter or another service to share updates about yourself or to see updates about others."

In order to better understand just what proportion of American web users are on Twitter, Pew decided to "use question language that exclusively focuses on Twitter," asking respondents point blank, "Do you use Twitter?"

Pew's report also sheds light on how Twitterers use the service (see charts below).

The most popular activities include sharing personal updates (19% of Twitter users say they do this at least once a day; 72% ever do this), posting reflections on their work life (12% do this at least once a day; 62% ever do this), and sending tweets with links to news stories (12% do this at least once a day; 55% ever do this). Sharing videos and posting locations in tweets were the least popular Twitter activities among Pew's respondents. Retweeting is fairly common, with 18% of people surveyed saying they retweet once a day or more.

The findings show that nearly half of Twitter's users check the site for new content every few weeks or less. Nearly a quarter (24%) check Twitter several times a day, while 21% say they never "check for material posted by others." Twenty percent consult Twitter less than every few weeks.

What do you make of Pew's findings? What surprises you about the numbers?

Comments

[nightingale801]

05:20 PM on 12/15/2010

:D

[Andrea Torres]

02:41 PM on 12/13/2010

and here I thought I was bored before I read this article.

[Iwpach]

12:16 PM on 12/13/2010

Is there such a thing as Anti-twitter? I like to keep people guessing and surprise intruders. ;}

[Jimmy Boy]

11:36 PM on 12/10/2010

I think Ashton Kutcher and Sara Palin each send about 1,000,000 tweets a day. They probably make up 10% of Twitter's user base.

[mikroskopic]

12:08 PM on 12/10/2010

I use twitter, solely as a rss feed. I get tweets from nasa, huffpost, roger ebert etc... It's like my own customized news source. I rarely tweet anything out.

[okiemoderate]

11:59 AM on 12/10/2010

The Pew study also stated that women and college educated are slightly more likely to use Twitter which is the category I fall under. I joined Twitter about a year and a half ago and honestly didn't "get it" at first. Then I started following various news feeds, bloggers I found interesting, and local businesses. Now it's my primary source of news and local deals. I like that I can check Twitter and immediately see in one place if there are any big headlines or any good deals at local businesses (great for the holiday season) rather than visiting multiple sites.

[gdatomic]

09:48 AM on 12/10/2010

Finally...sanity. (of course I tweeted a link to the study to my tiny group of followers...)

[songbookz]

09:43 AM on 12/10/2010

I use it several times a day, mainly to follow the #px (Progressive & Liberal Christian hashtag) and find it useful - just yesterday a guy replied to a series of my tweets and in the process referred me to a website and I ended up buying a book that looked interesting (on Liberal Charismatics) and i promised to let him know what I thought of the book when it arrives. Books on liberal and progressive Christianity are fairly hard to come by, so I consider the exchange a success.

Some days it's just reading and retweeting and wading through spam, but some times you get some replies going back and forth with someone and it's a pleasant, profitable, or at least interesting experience.

[GoodNewsDay]

09:05 AM on 12/10/2010

Twitter use strongest among US minority groups - study!

African-American and Latino adults in the US who use the internet are twice as likely as whites to use the website Twitter, a survey has found.

The Pew Research Center, a Washington-based think tank, found that 13% of Latino and 18% of African-American adult internet users use Twitter.

Of all US adult internet users, 8% use the micro-blogging site, Pew found.

Minority groups visit the site more because they are younger and use mobile technology more often, the centre said.

"Both of those groups, African-American and Latino adult internet users in the US, tend to be younger than white internet users, which helps to lead to their adoption of Twitter," said Senior Research Specialist Aaron Smith...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11965723

[Sara Lira]

08:32 AM on 12/10/2010

I have NEVER used twitter. I'd rather read the news, call my relatives, go outside ride my bike.... DO SOMETHING!!!

[gingerdaughtry]

05:22 PM on 12/15/2010

Isn't it obvious from the comments here that many people use Twitter for instant news updates, information exchange, and any number of different functions other than reporting their daily eating habits and location? I receive all my HuffPost, industry, and various other updates solely via Twitter. It saves me time logging into individual sites. Time I use to read the news, call my relatives, go outside, and even to DO SOMETHING!!!

[HighInfoVoter]

06:11 AM on 12/10/2010

Twitter just gives narcissists a place to find their voyeurs, or to learn how few other people are actually interested.

[jaredbrain]

02:32 PM on 12/11/2010

almost like commenters on a news site

[Ryan Schmidt]

04:00 AM on 12/10/2010

Not surprised.. If you ever watch what the trending topics you can see where they go off.. Just saying.. I use Twitter a lot and participate in those TT's..

[lilylee86]

03:19 AM on 12/10/2010

Twitter is good tool to help me update news from my friends.

WinPST Share Outlook~~

[Angelus2007]

03:10 AM on 12/10/2010

I don't tweet, just really have a feed of a few people to either get updates on their projects, or just because they are funny.

[timotay89]

12:04 AM on 12/10/2010

of the 65 million tweets each day, at least half have got to belong to sarah palin.