Hash tags, retweets, favs, overheard, nudges... to the uninitiated it's like learning Sanskrit.
To the initiated, it's a modern day language.
But a new study finds that Twitter is not used as often as commonly thought.
The Pew Research Center focused a survey exclusively on Twitter. Previously Pew asked respondents whether they used "the Internet to use Twitter or another service to share updates about yourself or to see updates about others?"
In September 2010, 24% of Internet users said "yes." Pew says:
When we reported the findings at various points, much of the news coverage and public attention to those findings noted that the question -- and the answers -- covered more than just the Twitter-using population, But some analysts and readers clearly thought our figures simply stood for all Twitter users.
When Pew polled again in November 2010, they asked exclusively about Twitter, only 8% of Internet users said "yes."
(I suppose you could guess what other social media sites the September respondents were talking about... LIKE!)
And of those who said "yes" to Twitter use, 41% said "they check the site less than every few weeks, or never do so at all."
Pew points out that their sample number of Twitter users was low, 102 respondents, so "given the modest overall sample size, these statistics are best understood as directional findings with a relatively large margin of error."
So is Twitter overated? Do you Tweet? Or are you in the "just don't get it" category?
