More American adults are using Twitter and the micro-blogging service is particularly popular among African-Americans and Latinos, according to a survey released on June 1. Thirteen percent of the online adults aged 18 and older surveyed by the Pew Research Centre's Internet and American Life Project said they use Twitter, up from eight percent in November 2010.
By race, 25 percent of the African-Americans surveyed said they use the service, 19 percent of the Hispanics and nine percent of the whites. "One in 10 African-American Internet users now visit Twitter on a typical day - that is double the rate for Latinos and nearly four times the rate for whites," Pew said.
Twitter usage was highest - 18 percent - among the 18-29 age group followed by 14 percent among online adults aged 30-49, eight percent among those aged 50-64 and six percent in the 65 and older age group.
Men were tweeting more frequently than women - 14 percent to 11 percent.
The survey also found that 95 percent of Twitter users own a mobile phone and 54 percent of them access the service on their handheld device.
The Pew survey of 2,277 adult Internet users was conducted between April 26 and May 22. The margin of error was plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.
More than 200 million people around the world use Twitter, firing off more than 140 million messages of 140 characters or less daily.