The Pew Internet and American Life Project has finally discovered Twitter, and points out that its users are young, mobile, and new media savvy—surprise! These are Pew's latest findings, part of its first look at the Twitter phenomenon and online status updating as a whole. Though many of the findings aren't particularly shocking (especially to those of us who, well, use Twitter), Pew profiles the demographics of the average Twitter users and how they compare to the general Internet-using population.

Pew conducted its survey by doing phone interviews with 2,253 adults between November and December of 2008 and found that 11 percent of adults in the US who use the Internet claim to have used Twitter or a similar microblogging service. The trend seems to be picking up at a quicker pace, too; the firm notes that, just a few weeks earlier, only nine percent of Internet users said they did so, and in May, only six percent.

When narrowing down to younger users—those who typically are the first to adopt these kinds of services—the number is much higher. 19 percent of online adults between the ages of 18 and 24 reported having used Twitter, as well as 20 percent of those between 25 and 34. Unsurprisingly, the number drops off with the 35-and-up age groups. These more "seasoned" users are still likely trying to understand what the kids are even doing these days to begin with.

Pew says that the average Twitter user is "overwhelmingly young," though the average age of a Twitter user is slightly higher than most other social networking services. Twitter's median age is 31, while Facebook's is 26 and MySpace's is 27. Because of their youth, however, Twitter users are more likely to come from lower-income households (older Internet users tend to make more than younger users), and they're more likely to live in urban areas than the general Internet population.

Data source: Pew Internet & American Life Project

Since Twitter is pushed as a service that can (and should) be used from mobile phones, it also comes as no surprise that Twitter users are more likely (by fairly significant margins) to use their cell phones to go online and send text messages than the overall online population. In fact, Twitter users tend to use and consume all sorts of media more than the rest of the population; they're more likely to read a newspaper on a smartphone, regular cell phone, and even online than everyone else, while "regular" Internet users are more likely to read a print newspaper. Twitter users are more engaged in blogging and reading other people's blogs as well.

Pew Internet & American Life Project

Overall, Pew observes that Twitter users engage news and technology at roughly the same rates as everyone else, "but the ways in which they use the technology—to communicate, gather and share information—reveals their affinity for mobile, untethered and social opportunities for interaction." Given another few years, it won't be surprising to see widespread Twitter use spread to older and more general Internet users in the same way text messaging has spread to parents and families. In fact, Twitter often only involves sending an SMS in the first place—maybe some of those parents can keep the momentum going after texting their kids and start sending updates to Twitter while they're at it.