If you’re in your late twenties to early forties, then you grew up listening to grunge, witnessed the era of the McJob & were among the first generation of internet users. You’re comfortable with technology & your social media of choice is Twitter. Social-networking sites such as Bebo, MySpace and Facebook are traditionally associated with younger users in their mid-teens to early twenties, but when it comes to micro-blogging site Twitter, ComScore found that this demographic was actually 12pc less likely than average to visit. According to ComScore, those aged 45-54 are 36pc more likely than average to visit Twitter, while 25-43 year-olds were 30pc more likely to visit.
“The skew towards older visitors, although perhaps initially surprising for a social media site, actually makes more sense than you might think at first,” said Sarah Radwanick on the offical ComScore blog. “With so many businesses using Twitter, along with the first generations of internet users ‘growing up’ and being comfortable with technology, this is a sign that the traditional early adopter model might need to be revisited,” she added. Radwanick postulated that the ratio of older to younger users may partially explain the explosion in Twitter’s user base in the past few months; simply put, there are more 45-54 year-olds in US and European population than 18-24 year-olds. Again, if you look at the Twitter ‘celebrities’ that have completely embraced the way of the tweet, you will see figures like Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross – males over 35, who are first-generation internet users.
It’s even attracting those that epitomize Generation X: Courtney Love, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and Chris Cornell (ex-Sound Garden) are all active users. Facebook, Bebo and the like will continue to adapt to a younger audience with advertising models and restructuring, but it will be interesting to see how Twitter’s post-baby boom, dotcom, MTV generation user base will shape its evolution.
