Filed under: News, Social Software, Microblogging
Twitter: all the kids aren't doing it, but does it matter?
There may be a lot of hype about Twitter as the trendiest communication tool out there, but it turns out the service isn't as cool as people make it out to be. Why? Because kids aren't using it at nearly the same rate as older demographics. According to a recent Nielsen survey, only 16% of Twitter's users are under 25. To put that number in perspective, under-25's make up a quarter of the universe of Internet users. Nielsen asks an important question, though: does it really matter that kids don't get it? Despite being about 1/4 the size of Facebook, Twitter gets the same amount of "buzz" in online media. In June, 10% of all active Internet users visited Twitter.com. Are these numbers impressive enough to make up for the site's lack of youth appeal? Will Twitter catch on with the kids one day? These are questions the service has to deal with, going forward.
So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
KeegdnaB said 6:24PM on 8-05-2009
I myself am 20 years old and am addicted to Twitter. I would not shed a tear if it never caught on with young people. iTs bAD eNuFf i haV 2 r33D dis 5H1t 0n FaC3b00K
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Radar said 7:04PM on 8-05-2009
You're an idiot!
Jon said 9:42PM on 8-05-2009
He's not an idiot, he was making a good point. People need to stop with the 1337 speak and learn to spell the words they are using!
Sanskrit said 9:27AM on 8-06-2009
Quite true. Or, as some would put it, "+1 QFTOMGWIN!!!!!1WINANDAWESOME11YOUWINONESOLIDGOLDINTERNETS1!1!one!!!11eleventy!1!"
LongshotX said 6:49PM on 8-05-2009
What is the point of twitter. So people can read about each others boring lives? It's a great tool if say you are following updates from a journal, blog, a release schedule but other than that it is pointless.
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shibathedog said 7:02PM on 8-05-2009
Exactly. What is wrong with plain old RSS? Why do I need this Twitter middleman BS?
Generic said 7:10PM on 8-05-2009
There is no point in trying to make younger people use twitter. Most of the ways that twitter is being used is more appealing to slightly older people and this is not bad. How young should you be to be allowed to use match.com? I don't see a failing business model there. When these so called young people become older they'll eventually embrace twitter, or maybe some of them will.
I can understand why someone needs an email account in this day and age but twitter is different. It is not an official form of communication, but more on the lines of an informal but formally used service. Even when companies announce important subjects to customers on twitter, there is always a longer and more detailed announcement outside twitter in a short URL. The thing is that twitter is good for short quick subjects but not for everything (like targeted email and online official statements).
In conclusion, people who do use twitter this way are demographically older and younger people will become older sometime in the future. The media has always had a negative take on subjects that are new because writers are usually trying to make the story interesting. Both social networks like facebook and myspace where believed to sizzle at a point and blogging was considered an amateurish act. Even email was subject to media skepticism. Although these various services were targeted at different demographic groups, they ended up becoming ubiquitous services.
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sharkbait said 7:34PM on 8-05-2009
I'm not one bit surprised. I've explained it to a few of my fellow < 18yro friends, and each one said that it sounds stupid or dumb.
Personally, I only follow people that interest me (and things like @cnnbrk, of course). People on Twitter seem to only complain if it's serious (e.g. hospital). Facebook is full of "cleaning... fml =[" and other ultimately uninteresting, boring, crap. (Also: quizzes. I don't care one bit about which roller coaster best fits you or how well someone knows pointless facts about someone else.) And if someone does post something boring and personal on Twitter, it takes five seconds to read the 140 characters and then you ignore it.
On another note, search on Twitter for "lol". There's constantly a surprisingly high number of results.
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kojo87 said 10:47PM on 8-05-2009
good points. (i chucked at the cleaning/fml bit) i mostly don't understand why people feel they need a Facebook and a Twitter. i don't have a Twitter because i know people would not want to read whatever pointless updates i post. i hardly update my Facebook status. then i hit F5 every 3 seconds to see who likes my status! :P
Anthony said 9:47PM on 8-05-2009
Wow?
I know so many people under 24 who use twitter. That's dumb.
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NyaR said 3:20AM on 8-06-2009
This just entails the susceptability of the older generations to advertisement and marketing.
I've known of since its inception, and have not even bothered to use it. A few months ago some of my friends. who know nothing of the internet, asked me wtf twitter was - because they heard of it on the news.
There is no application for twitter, everybody is just jumping on the bandwagon. Something like 70% of the posts are posted by like 10% of the site (im working with memory here..), who are mostly advertising networks.
So its just advertising networks jumping on this thing to get a foothold, pushing it out to CNN, ABC, FOX, W/E, and attracting old people, thereby tipping the statistics.
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JSams4131 said 8:00AM on 8-06-2009
You are absolutely right. But my question is...why do all these NEWS stations have twitter? They are the NEWS! what do they put on twitter? the same thing that they talk about on the television, and on their own official websites. Makes no sense as to why regular folk use twitter it has no advantage. Now if you were to try and sell yourself (i.e marketing something, yourself, your music), then yes it is understandable. But listening to my brother-in-law obsess about how Quest Love from the roots has over 8000 twitters...I told him who gives a f*ck? the guy is a drummer with millions he has all day to twitter to his twits..and yes at the end of the day..people who subscribe are just simply virtual followers, beckoning and crying for their hero's next 140 character statement
sushil said 7:58AM on 8-06-2009
11 - couldn't have put it better. Twitter is for those people who adore what they see on t.v and internet. And who also like these people? p.r companies as well as advertisers.
I heard somewhere that almost half or third of new users/posts are the only posts. i.e. after they try it, it gets boring. Twitter is not facebook, it won't hold ur attention/make you come back.
Celebrities only dig it because they "connect" to fans, when really there must be another angle. i.e. P.R telling them it will help there image, etc etc.
All in all, for the most of us, twitter is a website where u create an account, only to read posts of others and hardly post yours.
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jarjarblink182 said 2:25PM on 8-06-2009
omg ppl, do you not see the benefits of twitter? Look at the news in the past months and see what role twitter has played in it. Some ppl have said they like it bc of @cnn well...CNN has been getting some of its news from twitter. When the Iran uprising was going on (still going on?) and our cameras were not there to get it, and Irans cameras are certainly not going to post violence, who was posting them, TWITTER USERS. Twitter is just one of the social programs revolutionizing how we transmit data.
And lets face it, why do we watch basketball or go to concerts or movies. Entertainment. Twitter can also be more entertainment. People like Shaq and Ashton Kutcher have propelled twitter into a new light of movie stars with more interesting lives than our own. i r 1337
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Flo said 5:29PM on 8-06-2009
Really ?! Do you really think what you're saying ?
Don't you think that all you say wouldn't have been possible without Tweeter ? Have you ever heard of ... let's say... blogs ? Or even emails ? Social networks (myspace, facebook...) ? Instant messaging ?
Funny how before Tweeter I couldn't get any news from the world.
I'm 24 and I'd say 300% geek but the tweeter phenomenon really is a mystery to me. I guess it's because I got a life and I keep contact with my friends...
ps: sorry for my english, being french isn't helpfull :P
Michelle said 12:30PM on 8-06-2009
I am an intern for CKR Interactive (ckrinteractive.com) and I use Twitter. Being 20 not many of my peers are using the site. For businesses it can reach a large range of people and keep them updated and informed, therefore making it a great tool. Because of the lack of teens and youth on the site though, businesses have to be aware of who they are speaking to, since it is most likely older people with careers.
Michelle Chun-Hoon
CKR Interactive Intern
CKRinteractive.com
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MI_Guy said 12:43PM on 8-06-2009
The "bandwagon" phenomenon is in full effect here. I personally hate Twitter with the passion of a hundred thousand burning suns for a variety of reasons.. namely...: It's a PR/media-driven orgy of yet more useless "status updates" for all of the brainless friend-addicts (you know the kind) whose daily life consists of seeking the web 2.0 driven approval of others via 11-point font; it enables the sheep of our world to indulge in their obsessions with the rich and the famous, and better follow their iconic leaders off of whatever cliff is tweeted to them that day; it is just another media-propagated trend which gives Nick, Jim, and Latoya something to chat about at the water cooler and thus "connect" them because they are obviously all three "twitter-savvy" and thus part of this year's social elite; and from a slighly paranoid military intel perspective, its not only pointless to tweet your daily life, it's pathetic, sad, desparate, and downright dangerous if you don't know who's reading. And chances are, you don't.
Twitter, I hate you, I hate the word "tweet", and I die a little inside everytime I think about all of the hollow fools in the world who think that Tweeting their boring lives has magically transformed them into some sort of new-age social savvant.
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Troy said 5:55PM on 8-06-2009
There are different uses for Twitter (more than these 4)...
1) the facebook/myspace personal style users (tweet about their daily life events)
2) the business that use it to connect to their customers (fast, simple broadcast to anyone listening)
3) networking professionals connecting with other professionals (tweeting about their industry)
4) celebrities and their fans
I personally hate #1. I don't follow any personal friends on twitter, unless they also fit #3. I follow several companies because of #2. I enjoy the fact that I don't need to go to their websites or get email from them to keep up to date with what they are doing.
#3 is what Twitter is all about. I am an architect and there is a constant amount of new technology emerging weekly. I use Twitter as a micro-blog with a built in comments section. I tweet about new technologies, processes, etc that I discover in my working environment. I have been able to connect to many other architects and engineers through Twitter that I would have never even stumbled upon anywhere else. The way I did this is by searching Twitter for keywords like #BIM, #architecture, #revit, etc. The search function is the most powerful part of Twitter imo.
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TAC said 11:45PM on 8-21-2009
Great post Troy, I'm not very social network savvy but am slowly learning. Your post was the most twitter enlightening I've read so far. You cleared up the "value of twitter" issue fr me at least. I just started a new business finding overstock consumer goods merchandise to buy and liquidate; http//www.LiquiQuick.com ...since you state that twitter does have business networking value as opposed to others in this thread who say it has little or no value, I was curious to know if there was some sort of guidelines available somewhere for using twitter to network for business purposes (Business Networking on Twitter for Dummies?...lol) Your post clearly shows the value of twitter in more ways than one and I hope to use it in the future to contact people associated or interested with my line of business as you have in yours as an Architect. Thanks for the Twitter education.