Teens Not Tweeting: What Does That Portend?

February 4, 2010 | by Rich Wolford | Posted in Social Media

A story in the washingtonpost.com today discussed the results of a new Pew Research Center study on teen usage of Twitter. According to study, "only 8 percent of online teens have embraced Twitter, a notable low for a generation so passionate about technology. Think of the millions of text messages that teens send. Think of their endless hours on Facebook."  Overall, 73 percent of teens use social networking to communicate with their friends and family. The reasons for not embracing this technology were lack of privacy and being too condensed. This was a bit surprising to me as I thought 140 characters was plenty of space to say "OMG did U C what she is wearing!"

Teens have often been seen as a bellwether for new technology trends, and adults tend to follow their lead. Does this signal a new trend in Twitter adoption and usage? It's probably too early to tell if this is the beginning of any major trend. For me personally, it reinforces my view that Twitter will ultimately be used and create value in certain niche situations and industries (e.g. politics and entertainment) rather than as a broad social networking platform like Facebook.