Twitter: Teenage fans flock to social media site

The average user of Twitter is between 18 and 21 according to a new study, however the authors said that a direct survey would be needed to get a more accurate figure.

The average user of the social media service Twitter is estimated to be between 18 and 21, according to a new report.

Box UK carried out the study by searching Twitter for phrases such as "I am 21" or "I'm 45" and omitting any tweets that were obviously references to birthdays in order to get some idea of the age of users.

Dan Zambonini, technical director at the consultancy company, pointed out that without a direct survey it is very hard to know a great deal about users since Twitter asks for so little information, which also leads to other problems.

"Some organisations and people take advantage of the openness and simplicity of Twitter by trying to cheat the system and find quick wins by not participating in the spirit of the platform," he explains.

Mr Zambonini called for the social media site to take action to prevent spammers from making their presence felt on the site.

Last week, Twitter announced that it will begin offering paid-for accounts in the last three months of this year, which may include an analytics dashboard.

14/09/2009