Is Canada a-twitter?
In the Globe and Mail’s technology blog, Matt Hartley looks into how Canadians use Twitter, a popular social network where participants tell each other what they are doing, in 140 characters or less. According to an Ipsos Reid poll, only 1.45 percent of online Canadians are frequent users. There are not many who “tweet” regularly.
“The study, which polled 824 Canadian adults online, found that that 26 per cent of respondents are aware of Twitter, and that only 6 per cent of them had actually spent some time coming up with witty 140-character messages.”
On the other hand, Hartley says that three of five online Canadians are on Facebook.
Canadians between the age of 18 and 34 are much more likely to use Twitter. The article says 32 percent are aware of the service, and university graduates are “nearly twice as likely to be aware of Twitter compared to those folks with a high school education or less.”
This is interesting when compared to our research. Here are two figures from the Canadian Internet Project’s most recent report, Canada Online!.
As mentioned in the Ipsos Reid poll, it is not surprising to see that social networking is an important part of the daily communication routines for younger Canadians. However, as figure 10-2 shows, it is interesting to note that online Canadians between the age of 30 and 44 contribute slightly more to social networking sites than Canadians between the age of 18 and 29.
Social networking is not only for the young. Whether older Canadians will join Twitter is another question.
