Pew Research: 8% of US adult Internet users are on Twitter, 2% use it daily

In “the first-ever survey reading from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project that exclusively examines Twitter users,” the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project has found that 8% of US adults that use the Internet use Twitter.

The survey found that Twitter users are more likely to be young (18-29), African-American or Latino (“twice as likely to use Twitter as are white internet users”) and are twice as likely to be urbanites. Women and college-educated are also slightly more likely than average to be using Twitter.

The new survey took a different approach from earlier surveys Pew had conducted about Twitter. Whereas before the survey had asked about whether Internet users do status updates in general (which garnered a 24% “yes” response in September 2010) this survey focused directly on Twitter with the simple question, “Do you use Twitter?” 8% answered yes to this question with 2% saying they use Twitter basically everyday.

Here is the link to the full report as a web page and as a PDF.