“I get my news through Twitter; that 140 character limit makes it much easier to consume and I can easily sort out what’s interesting to me plus what’s not.”
Trolling through the various articles and opinion pieces about college students and Twitter that have come out recently, the majority of them conclude that college students are slow to adapt to Twitter and just “aren’t that into it.” Of late, these numbers seem to be shifting.
While there is no doubt that Jenni represents some of the most active college students on social media, her statement I think is quite telling.
Why does she prefer Twitter? Because it’s faster.
Similar to my previous post highlighting the multi-tasking proclivities of college students, I would submit that this in fact is a central component of their daily lives. For college students and Gen Y, they gravitate towards technologies that consolidate tasks and optimize their lives – Facebook is their peer-to-peer communication tool and “homebase,” their cellphones might as well be their third arm and their growing subscription to smartphones like the blackberry or the iphone are a testament to how all of these worlds can converge.
Looking to develop a technology platform, device or product for college students? Make sure it helps them do more things faster.
So for its part, Twitter allows college students (and its other users!) to digest information much more efficiently – because of its character limits, it forces participants to really share the key points of what they are trying to say. A teacher’s dream: users have to craft the ultimate “thesis” statement to generate maximum interest and response.
But it doesn’t stop there. Twitter also has the unique ability to allow college students to connect with the rest of the world. No longer is their social networking limited to their campus or immediate social circle, but now have a voice the whole world can hear! (YouTube accomplishes the same thing but you have to make a video to participate in the same way).
Twitter allows college students to do more now and say ‘Hello World!’ all at the same time. What a faboulous tool and one I have little doubt will grow quickly amongst those “new consumers.”
3 Comments
I’m finding it interesting to read about how college students are using Twitter. From what I’m hearing from people around me, Twitter’s not a big hit in colleges. In fact, I don’t know if I’d even have gotten started on Twitter if it weren’t for the fact that I work in marketing.
That being said, i only started really enjoying Twitter, when I stopped thinking about it as a marketing tool, and started using it as a way to connect with people. In that sense, I think it could be great for college kids.
As for a way to get news faster? I’m not sold on that. I’d much rather skim through the headlines in my RSS reader than weed through tweets about breakfast to get my news…
I started using Twitter because it was my job as an intern at a staffing firm, but other the past year, it has become a part of my personal and professional routines. In September as classes began again, only five or six of my college friends were on Twitter. That number has grown to over fifty.
This number still represents a small number of my followers. I have also noticed that this group is protecting their tweets, have little followers and only tweet their daily lives. This medium offers so much more than that. Hopefully, college students will continue to shift over to utilizing medium for professional development and networking.
Twitter: marksawyier
Adam, personally I’m with you on the news piece but I think it is an interesting path that Twitter might take – rather than letting Google Reader decide what’s good news, the Twitter community can.
Courtney, I think you’re right that college students have become much more “curious” about Twitter but I think the trending indicates that it is growing amongst college students.
You both might find this interesting: http://bit.ly/9fwwvB . Interesting information on Twitter usage among Gen Y.