Comments on: Study: Young adults haven't warmed up to Twitter

In spite of all the press, only 22 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds questioned in a survey say they use the microblogging service.

[HHaller2]

Do we really need Twitter? Seems a bit pretentious to stream your daily life.

Someone please start a backlash, ASAP.

[septa44]

Here you go:

http://www.twitterbacklash.com

[DoesWhat]

Those who bash Twitter really don't know or understand anything about it. Personally I don't use it a whole lot.

The 'I don't care what people are doing' argument is a strange one. If you don't care. Don't look. There are people who care about what other people are doing.

The fact that people think that's all Twitter is, an update of what people had for breakfast just shows how little you've looked into the subject. The beauty of Twitter is that it can be used in so many ways for so many different kinds of people.

1. If you're a web designer, entrepreneur or in any self employed/self promotional activity, it is great for making contacts, making deals, keeping in contact with clients and forming business relationships.

2. I once couldn't find an answer to a question I had on Google. I had a spot-on answer within 5 minutes on Twitter.

3. As a promotional tool it can be useful. Dell has made over a million from Twitter with it's 'Deals' account. This is beneficial for both parties.

4. As a lead generator, it can be used to search out possible clients, help them out, give them advice, in exchange for an eventual exchange of money for a product or service.

5. Latest news, search is instant. You can get immediate reactions to events and stories, as well as pick up news immediately. Mainly useful for journalists and news junkies.

6. Finding like-minded people for casual communication. Facebook etc is a little heavy when it comes to finding 'friends', it isn't really set up for doing so. If you did find a like-minded stranger, once they become your friend, they have access to almost everything about you (on Facebook). Twitter is great for casual acquaintances. Someone else is new to PHP, discuss, pass on tips etc.

7. Communicating with those in the public eye. Sure it might seem odd to some of you, but people idolise celebrities/people on TV etc. Although response rate often isn't great, it's a lot easier to communicate with these people on Twitter than anywhere else.

I'm sure it's used in a variety of other ways, but that's all I can think of at the moment. A long winded way of saying, don't pigeon-hole Twitter. I'd say it's useful primarily if you fit into any of these categories:

Techie
Self-employed
Public figure
Journalist
Webmaster/Website owner
Blogger
CEO
Egomaniac

[tomws]

@DoesWhat:

I'm a Twitter basher (and Facebook basher, and MySpace basher, and...), but I must commend you on your description of the actually beneficial uses of the service. I hadn't considered those before. You've almost recruited another cult member.

[kelmon]

@DoesWhat

It is entirely possible that I have missed something about Twitter but as best as I can tell it is only really of use to interesting people that already have successful blogs (sort of a replacement for RSS because Twitter is real-time) and companies who want to keep in touch with existing customers (or rather, with customers who want to stay in touch with the company). I do not, for example, see how you can use Twitter as a means of making contact with people since people have to be interested in making contact with you first in order to subscribe to your Twitter feed. Particularly within the context of the article, I don't see why anyone would want to use Twitter if they already used existing social networking sites, such as Facebook, since they essentially do the same thing (although I take your point on the security aspect).

Basically, I can see some use of the service but not really as a replacement of existing services. I tried it about a year or so ago but then didn't understand the point of broadcasting if there wasn't an audience. In the end I came to the conclusion that I was using it as an alternative to RSS (i.e. reading other people's tweets rather than publishing my own) and that I preferred RSS.

[DoesWhat]

@kelmon

"I do not, for example, see how you can use Twitter as a means of making contact with people since people have to be interested in making contact with you first in order to subscribe to your Twitter feed."
- You can send them an @reply, they don't need to be following you.

"I can see some use of the service but not really as a replacement of existing services"
- It's not meant to be.

"I tried it about a year or so ago but then didn't understand the point of broadcasting if there wasn't an audience"
- You have to actively engage with other users to build your audience.

I'm not a particularly huge Twitter fan, I just think people should know the facts.

[mollybob]

I don't really think it's about streaming your life - that's pretty boring and rather pretentious - agreed. I use it to share links with a network of professionals in my field, there's a bit of lifestreaming in there, but mostly links to articles and questions around professional stuff. I think Twitter is, in certain respects, who you choose to follow. Follow lifestreamers, get.... lifestreams.

[z1g1]

@ DoesWhat I would like to use your comments in some research that I am perusing about social media, I think that your insights into the uses of this new technology are quite insightful. Please let me know if you would be willing to participate. Thank You @z1g1

[DoesWhat]

@z1g1

Absolutely. Contact me when/if you need anything.

[sjschaef]

LOL.. at the risk of some hardcore 'Twits' bashing me... I think Twitter has no real purpose and is a fad. Updating your profile on Facebook or Myspace when you have a random thought, going some where or doing something is already too much information. I think (and hope) the majority of people could care less about the ridiculous nuances of people's lives.. much less subscribe to it. Hopefully in a year it will be long gone.

[Cheese McBeese]

"only 22 percent (of 18-24 year olds) use Twitter."

That lines up with the same percentage of young adults who have personality disorders. http://sfhelp.org/research/01_20%25wounded.htm

Twitter explained.

[servermaker]

awesome.

[gunchmofo]

Facebook Status Updates + News Feed > Twitter...

[cdwilliams1]

I was a Twitter early adopter. It was a great way to quickly keep in touch with my closest friends and see what they were up to. I live in the Minneapolis area, and when the 35W bridge collapsed we were all able to instantly get in touch to make sure everyone was ok. I found it useful just as a tool for keeping in touch with friends.

What got me to cancel my account several months ago:

1) The thing was, as more people joined the service got terrible. The infamous "fail whale" appeared all the time. I

2) t's just like anything else, once everybody finds out about it it ruins it for everyone. Pretty soon you have retailers and celebrities signing up. I really don't want to follow a company to see what's on sale. I kept getting direct messages that were spam. For example I tweeted that I had just purchased an HD radio and I thought it was terrible. Within 60 minutes the HD Radio association had sent me a friend request and sent me a direct message asking me my opinions about HD Radio.

3) Once these tools get commercialized I get turned off. Seriously, when there are books and marketing classes on "How to make money on Twitter" I had to get out. What was a cool little tool I used once in a while was now a data mine for greedy corporations.

4) The final nail in the coffin was when Minnesota Public radio found out about twitter. I had been following them as they sent one or two updates a day related to special events or major stories. They started tweeting several times an HOUR. They just didn't get it. Twitter is not a chat room. They continously spammed my email box full on their updates. Everything from news, to who was currently on the air, to stories they had posted on their website. They didn't use hashtags or create separate id's to allow me to filter stuff out.

In summary, Twitter for me ended up like everything else on the internet. It's great until people find out about it. Myspace was neat until Fox bought it and destroyed it, Facebook was ok when it was limited to college campuses. Twitter was great when it was small. Bringing in the masses and corporations just ruins the utility and community feel.

[twittercansuckit]

young adults haven't warmed up to Twitter because is ******* stupid!!!
also, the results of this study are probably skewed. it reminds me of that sprint commercial that says most of the people seeing this don't even know what twitter is (paraphrased).
****** bags like CNN and Aston Kutcher 'tweet'.
oh and speaking of 'twitter'....shouldn't the action verb be 'twit'......or shouldn't the site be called tweeter?
stupid.

[codynews]

**ONLY** 22%? I think that number is amazingly high.

Personally I think twitter is the dumbest thing to come around in a long time. The headline should be "New survey shows a whopping 22% of young adults use twitter"

Cody

[meh100]

I agree with this. I'm a college student and I would estimate that less than 10% of my friends use twitter.

[myles taylor]

I still don't use it. I don't get the appeal. It's like the update section of Facebook and....nothing else. I've tried on two occasions to start using it and I don't understand how people can get addicted to it. That's just me though.

[mollybob]

try finding people with similar interests, who share links and information about them - not quite facebook because the relationship doesn't need to be mutual. Facebook's more about buddies, Twitter's more about connections. Anyway, don't want to sound too much like a Twitter evangelist (it's not for everyone, it depends what you're looking for, and what you're interested in), just had to highlight the differences.

[sillygoosen]

Because it's ridiculous. Twitter has to be the premier example of a technology that forces itself on us rather than being useful when we WANT to use it. IMHO. I'm a 25 year IT professional, and I can't stand twitter.

[hassan_bin_sober]

Social networking is like giving the FBI a free pass to study your life!

Twitter is for TWITS! Drink *******, it's better for you!

[hassan_bin_sober]

********It's so nice to know someone at CNET vocabulary censors group is looking out for you so you don't see any dirty words! ...Idiots ********** = T_W_A_T_T_ER

[orlandorr]

Mmm... Maybe because it's USELESS??

[DoesWhat]

I think we're missing the point here. Just because you don't have a use for Twitter, it doesn't mean others don't.

If this article was about TV subtitles, you wouldn't say, "subtitles are useless because I can just listen to what's being said".

[Harrison912]

I'm mainly on Twitter for socially marketing my safety and security web site but I maintain a presence on FaceBook to hopefully reach that younger demographic. Thanks, Caroline, for this information.

[knowles2]

I never got twitter either.

An way google wave seem far superior to me and I am going to look forward to playing around with it in the near future.

[plake777]

Found your article very interesting. I recently blogged about the Twitter phenomena in a post called 'Ambient Awareness'. Check it out.

http://blurthelines.typepad.com/weblog/2009/05/ambient-awareness.html

[wclanders]

I used twitter for a couple weeks and found it more annoying than anything. Most of my friends have already stopped using it. It was one of those fad things that's interesting for a few weeks.

[gbabitts]

I blogged about this exact issue in March. Could this be the early sign of social media fatigue?

http://www.gerardbabitts.com/2009/03/26/does-gen-y-know-something-we-dont/

[JoeDuck1]

Just back from the first major Twitter conference (!) I think those unmoved by Twitter's rapid rise to prominence are forgetting that behavioral issues trump technological or rational ones all the time in tech. Habituation is why we do *most* of the things we do, and Twitter's becoming a habit for many people:
http://technology-report.com/2009/05/forresters-jeremiah-owyang-twitter-is-way-over-hyped/

[JoeDuck1]

Just back from the first major Twitter conference (!) I think those unmoved by Twitter's rapid rise to prominence are forgetting that behavioral issues trump technological or rational ones all the time in tech. Habituation is why we do *most* of the things we do, and Twitter's becoming a habit for many people:
http://technology-report.com/2009/05/forresters-jeremiah-owyang-twitter-is-way-over-hyped/

[cp256]

Add me to those who think it is useless, at least in my life.

I don't twit, I don't book my face and I don't IM. I am an internet professional and have been running my own online business since 1992. My friends, customers and business associates know how to get a hold of me 24/7 if they need to without the nonsense and spam magnetism.

[flickrz]

Surprised to know that kids haven't picked up twitter habit yet. Usually, they are the early adopters of any kind of new social experiment.