Young Adults Prefer Email and Texting—and are more likely to Tweet than users 30-49

Twitter’s user base is still growing quickly. But the user demographic has shifted. Young adults now outnumber the users age 30-49, who had previously been considered the core group for Twitter. According to this data from September 2009, it looks like African-American females, age 18-29 with an income of less than $30,000 and at least some college education are at the top of the user charts. In another study, Sysomos reported that in May, 66% of Twitter users who disclosed their age were under 25. 

These Twitter numbers surprised me. I projected a trend of younger users utilizing Facebook and MySpace to update their profiles, while the Gen X crowd would dominate their daily updates on Twitter. It looks like our generation can’t get enough of online networking sites. 

Because we are part of Generation Y and the Millennial Generation--the most connected, multi-tasking generation today--this study shouldn’t have surprised me. More than one-quarter of college students said that email was the activity they were least likely to give up for a week—far ahead of the mere 9% who said they couldn’t live without social networks. Although respondents spent 33 hours per month on social networking sites and only 31 hours on email, email and text messaging came out on top. 

How do you project these online trends shifting for young adults?

By Renee Halgerson