Does Twitter Exist?

7 comments | May 5, 09:30 PM | best-of-earl | by Earl Creps

Recently I came across a disturbing article presenting evidence that some social networking activities, specifically Twitter, have much less of a following among the young than I was assuming.

I find this disturbing because I would really prefer that all of my assumptions be proven correct.

When I asked Glen Davis (Chi Alpha, Stanford University) about this article he responded this with these words:

“I was just at a conference where representatives from LinkedIn and Twitter both spoke. The LinkedIn guy was asked about his demographics and he said, ‘The readership of the Wall Street Journal.’ And then the twitter guy said, ‘Our users are a lot older than people think.’

Glen concludes: “I don’t know a single student who twitters.”

Now that’s trouble. Glen’s observation upset an article of faith for lots of older people like me: anything new is exclusively a possession of youth culture, at least for a long while. And yet it seems that young adult fascination with some forms of social networking either never really existed in the first place, or is declining much more rapidly than anyone (like me) expected.

How to interpret this possible trend-in-the-making? Here are some hypotheses:

1. Boomer Pirates: New connectivity modes are pioneered by the young and then captured by old people who use them as talismans of cool and symbols of their “forever young” attitude. Social networking for Boomers is digital Botox.

2. Cool Defection: When young folk sense that Boomers (and now Xer’s) are intruding on their innovation, they react as a teenager does when a parent comes barging into their bedroom. As soon as older folks are in, the cool is out and the young are MIA.

3. Facebook Fixation: Field reports and observations of my own tell me that FB is still very popular among 18-24’s (and younger) although there is a disquieting cultural divide between its users and those of MySpace, and a sneaking sense the FB is behind the curve now. While recent studies find that usage continues to grow, I’ve got an instinct that FB is feeling tired. One student of these things argues that people are just burning out on an overload of online profiles.

4. Networking Nostalgia: Already the most studied and marketed generation in history, young adults feel the inevitable “monetization” (was that even a verb 5 years ago?) of every new connectivity platform. Some users don’t care, but some start drifting toward any new vehicle still early enough in its development to avoid the infomercial feel that FB, MySpace, and Twitter are all taking on. They know, for example, that at least some of the famous people who tweet addictively have their messages written by staffers and posted by software robots.

Combine that with the percentage of FB messages that are event invitations or outright product promotions and I wonder if some connectivity regret starts to set in. “Remember when it was just about getting to know each other?” might become the key question among users. Like an Indy band’s second album, the second generation of these networking vehicles always seems “too commercial.”

Ironically, Advertising Age just carried an article lamenting the “socialism” practiced by most social networking entities. It seems they are siphoning millions of dollars out of the coffers of investors and then “redistributing” that wealth in the form of free content. So maybe the issue is not monetization in the strict sense, as much as the feeling that somehow the platform and it’s content are more agenda-driven than relationship forming. The only connection that counts is the one that gets you to my event, or entices you to buy my new book.

All of these issues made me realize that reverse mentoring (and other forms of inter-cultural learning) needs some focus on what people unlike me are not doing, as well as on what they are doing. Culture is composed as much of things absent as things present.

I’m also thinking that the Diffusion of Innovation curve that has proven so helpful in understanding the process of change on other issues may need some serious modification now. Innovation may spread (or not) in much more unpredictable ways due to the viral nature of the internet and the globalization of the world’s cultures.

While some people will always adopt new items before others, the process is much more complex than just who gets the new box first. We need to start asking what kind of person that is, why they were first (or last), where they live, when will they drop out of the innovation if at all, and how do these issues all fit together. A bell curve is really handy, but probably not enough now.

Maybe I should tweet that.