As an accidental Cosmopolitan subscriber, I had a couple magazines to read on a six hour car ride into California over spring break. It was probably the LAST thing I thought would remind me of school, but I stumbled across an article in the March 2011 issue of Cosmo that brought my social media class to mind. According to a survey done by the Pew Center, only about 14% of 18 to 24 year-olds use Twitter. On top of that survey Cosmo conducted its own survey asking readers if the survey seemed accurate. A whomping 81% of readers said that they aren’t into Twitter and that only marketing executives are amped about it,
Cosmo Cover
leaving only 19% who said they loved their Twitter’s.
So my question is, how realistic is this? Is twitter really that unpopular? Well I can shed a little light on this. First of all, the survey was taken out of context. I looked up the survey done by the Pew Center, and that 14% is the largest percentage of users, so the majority of users were in that age range, and the majority of users are women. So the spin that the Cosmo article gave it was a little incorrect. More interesting than that finding was the fact that 8% of American adults who use the internet use twitter. But the article in question ignores that fact.
My favorite part of the article, though, was the poll in which 81% of readers said that only marketing executives are excited about Twitter. I might not be the best person to ask about Twitter, this I know, but I kind of agree with the poll. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that marketing executives take Twitter too far. When you post every five minutes, every single day, you’ve gone too far. CNN I’m looking at you. Part of my problem with Twitter is that there is so much useless information posted all the time that it’s impossible to keep up with and not worth the time. If I wanted that information, I’d go to the website. I can see where Twitter would be nice if people didn’t post so frequently, but it’s just too much too fast.
Personal Twitter accounts are kind of worthless unless you’re creating your own brand, so this is probably why people say they aren’t very attached to Twitter. It’s useful for marketing, but if you’re looking into a personal account, you might as well just get a Facebook where there is no character limit.
