Just over half of social media users (53%) have a Twitter account and most (67%) have had it for more than 3 years, according to the survey.

[chart slug=”twitter-32″] [chart slug=”twitter-33″]

An even wider world of people encounter Twitter without using it. Of all Twitter users, 68% see hashtags and Twitter handles or tweets displayed on TV, 61% in news stories, 52% from people reading tweets on TV. 40% hear about Twitter from friends and 28% on billboards, bus signs and elsewhere.

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These are noticed by non-Twitter social media users too. Fully 51% of non-Twitter users have seen Tweets — 45% on TV, 33% from friends, 27% in news articles they read digitally, 22% from going to twitter.com without signing up, 12% from search and 8% in the newspaper.

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Demographics

Twitter users tend to be younger than the average social media user. The average age is 36, according to the study, while overall social media users are 46 (28% of Twitter users are between the ages of 18-24 years old vs. 10% of overall social media users). A quarter of the Twitter sample have children (22%), compared with 34% for social media users in the panel in general, which reflects the younger average age. The majority have college degrees (57%) compared with 40% of social media users generally in the panel.[chart slug=”twitter-36″]

Twitter users are more likely to own smartphones (92% of those with cell phones have smartphones) than social media users overall (79%), but they are no more likely to own tablets (54% vs. 54%).

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