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Who’s tweeting? New study has the answer

An exhaustive study reveals everything you ever wanted (or didn't want) to know about Twitter users.

 

Mike Fenn

Internet Culture

Posted on Oct 12, 2012   Updated on Jun 2, 2021, 9:31 am CDT

Are you a 20-year-old American woman with an iPhone? If so, it’s likely you use Twitter.

At least that’s a key find from a Beevolve study that compiled the data of 36 million Twitter profiles. The study measured statistics like age, gender, and location demographics, users’ most-tweeted subjects, and frequency of tweets in order to draw conclusions about users.

Why study tweets? Because Twitter is just that big—they report that millions of active users have tweeted at least a billion times over the last 3 years.

The study was no quick look at Twitter, either. Researchers analyzed pages down to the background colors most users prefer. (If you’re curious, that’s purple for most women and black for most men.)

Other statistics the study provides:

  • 84.2 percent of users specify their location in their profiles.

  • Female users under 25 outnumber males. The trend is reversed in older age groups.

  • Family, entertainment, arts, and technology are the most tweeted topics. Manufacturing and pets, not so much.

  • More users have the word “love” in their bio than the words “fun” or even “Twitter” itself.

  • Most users have 50 or less followers and, similarly, follow 50 or less people themselves.

  • 25 percent of Twitter users have never tweeted.

While that may seem like an exhaustive take on the platform, Beevolve is just getting started. The social media monitoring company hopes to release even more Twitter user statistics soon.

Photo via Maryland GovPics/Flickr

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*First Published: Oct 12, 2012, 12:08 am CDT