No, I didn’t conduct the research myself, but as astutely pointed out by Ben Parr, the recent report commissioned by Morgan Stanley regarding one teen (and his friend’s) internet / technology related activities may seem the sweeping generalizations of a small group of individuals … but they do have some roots in evidence.

Well, that bit about teens not twittering anyway.  Earlier last month, Caroline McCarthy pointed out an interesting study from Pace University and the Participatory Media Network.

What’s kind of interesting that isn’t mentioned in the original CNet article, is that the survey is made of 200 individuals who were members and consumers from the Participatory Media Network.  I take this to mean that these are individuals who already have a bias to be tech-friendly and social-media minded.

And yet, out of those 200 individuals aged 19-24, only 22% of them were on Twitter.

However, in keeping with the Morgan Stanley report, which talks about teens being on social networks, 99% of those surveyed were also on social networks.

And I’m sure this is all just the tip of the iceberg (in a Pew poll conducted last year, only 19% of teens / young adults were on Twitter).  In my anecdotal and non-scientific polling of friends and family this is entirely consistent.  Most teens and young adults I know aren’t on Twitter, and if they have heard of it, just don’t “get” it to any degree.

Even as Twitter continues to explode, one wonders how sustainable it is, if it doesn’t have the power of demographics on its side.  Or, perhaps, if it will, perhaps like Facebook, inevitably skew to an older individuals over time, safety issues or no.