Today’s article in Psy Blog is an excellent summary of psychological insights into Twitter users.

Twitter is still growing rapidly and users send more than 65 million “tweets” per day – a number that represents significant year-over-year growth from 2009.

Here are some of the most succinct, high-level findings from their article.

• People join Twitter mostly to follow their friends. Following celebrities and others is a secondary thing.
• Twitter is much less conversational and more like a game of CB radio where people take turns broadcasting their message and then replying or responding to others’ messages.
• The stereotypes are true – a significant number of tweets are conversational or babble. This may include social pleasantries, public conversations, etc.
• Average Twitter user is 31 year old.
• Gender Differences: Men tend to have 15% more followers than women. Men and women tweet at about the same rate.
• Some researchers classify twitter users are “meformers” (sending out mostly info about themselves) or “informers” (sharing information and replying to other users. According to this typology 80% are “Me-Formers” and 20% are “In-formers.” This reiterates the point above about Twitter not being the “dialogue” that some have made it out to be. It’s more of a public sharing of information than a true dialogue.
• Trends – tend to be short lived and typically news related.

Read the full article at Psy Blog