Nearly one in five U.S. adults online use Twitter, survey finds

In this photo illustration a man looks at Twitter on his iPhone and tweets from Clarence House on July 23 about the Duchess of Cambridge giving birth. In the U.S., a new survey says 18% of U.S. adults active online use Twitter.

By Paresh Dave

Aug. 5, 2013 12:50 PM PT

Twitter usage among U.S. adults who go online is up to 18% in the latest Pew Research Center survey, a tad increase from 16% last summer.

The survey released Monday once again showed Twitter’s popularity among people younger than 30, with 30% of so-called millennials active on the site. Twitter is also twice as popular among blacks and Latinos as people described as white. It’s usage is fairly even across income and education levels.

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Twitter remains far behind Facebook. Pew reported in February that 67% of U.S. adults who go online visit Facebook.

Previous Pew surveys in the last year have reported 20% of online adults using LinkedIn, 15% on Pinterest, 13% on Instagram, 6% on Reddit and 6% on Tumblr.

“The upshot is that Facebook is clearly the dominant player in this space, but Twitter use is very comparable to that of sites like Pinterest and Instagram,” Pew senior researcher Aaron Smith said in an email. “And around three times as many Americans use Twitter as use sites like Reddit or Tumblr.”

Overall, 72% of people surveyed this spring who reported using the Internet said they had “used a social networking site like Facebook, LinkedIn or Google Plus.” That’s up from 64% two years ago when Pew’s question referred examples such as “MySpace, Facebook or LinkedIn.” Much of the growth has come from people in the 65-plus age range.

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