Why Teens Don’t Tweet

Why Teens Don’t Tweet
Teenagers are notorious for being terrible at social engagement, voting, and keeping up with the news. While I don’t want to typecast an entire age demographic, I can say this with confidence: Teens, more than any other age group, care about their friends. It’s the continuation of real-life friendship (and the creation of online ones) that has driven the tremendous growth of MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, etc. It’s about the social graph. That’s why more than 50 percent of Facebook users are under 25, even while older users are joining quickly. We even highlighted these points in When Do You Use Twitter Versus Facebook?

But Twitter is far less about the social graph than it is about the overall conversation surrounding an item. Retweets are about sharing items and @replies are about allowing the public to be part of a conversation you’re having with someone. If you just follow your friends on Twitter, you will barely be using it. A lot of the value comes from following interesting people and celebrities.

Here’s the other problem that I’ve heard consistently: teenagers have nothing to say on Twitter. Twitter is a huge promotional tool – for businesses, for bloggers, for self-described experts – but teenagers aren’t as concerned with these things as a whole. Only the most ambitious teenagers start businesses, and most are worried about school, not about becoming recognized as an expert in his or her space. If they want to update friends on their cereal or their lives, Facebook’s far more effective.