There have been a number of amorphous and shifting perceptions about who is using emerging social media platforms such as Twitter and how—such as "teens don't tweet," or that twitter is populated primarily and almost exclusively by educated whites.
While many of these weak suppositions have been proven baseless, the perception still exists among many in our industry that African-Americans are late and slow adopters of social media and of mobile technology in particular. A number of recent studies have hard data that refutes this; in fact, "African-Americans are now the most active users of the mobile web, and their use is growing at a faster pace than mobile internet use among white or Hispanic adults," according to the 2010 Pew Internet & American Life Project.
A recent article in Slate entitled "How Black People Use Twitter" offers some real insights into how African-Americans are using these new platforms while unfortunately relying on the simplistic cognitive bias pointed out by Scott Poulson-Bryant, that these behaviors somehow are representative of the "Black Twitter Experience"—which even the original article takes pains to address near its summary. The Slate article focuses on the use of "blacktags" or hashtags that rely on a particular construction and demonstrate a certain viral element that can sometimes make the hashtags reach trending status on Twitter.
While this is certainly one major characteristic that seems to be popular among African-American users of Twitter, is it certainly not exclusive to them, nor is it a definitive differentiator between any supposed racial profiles of users.
As we all know, the internet's cloak of anonymity has allowed people to become online what they could not be in the real world, and Twitter is no exception to this—while many in our industry rely on Twitter to connect with their colleagues and peers using their real names and faces, there are most certainly those on Twitter who are not who they claim to be, using this network's anonymity to engage with subgroups outside their own that they could not otherwise in real (offline) life.
If you want to know what a particular subgroup thinks, how they relate to one another, what they talk about, and where they congregate, the best way to achieve this is to become a member of one of these subgroups. Until the internet, this was impossible. Now, we can all be atheist grandmothers who love ice hockey, if we want to be.
Is it unethical to do this? is it wrong to become someone else, outside your socioeconomic group, outside your culture, outside your race or even sex? If you're selling something, attempting to manipulate, propagating hate, of course it's wrong. But, if you're searching for real and objective insights...
I'm not suggesting invisible anthropology here, nor that anyone should actively deceive; rather, that the internet provides us with an opportunity we have never had before to erase walls and to experience belonging within a group that would otherwise not accept us, or find acceptance from us, in the real world. Acceptance is powerful, and subgroup behaviors, mores, and trends can only be learned by living them, even if only digitally.
If you want to know how subgroups of people are using platforms like Twitter, then become that atheist grandmother who loves ice hockey, meet other atheist grandmothers who love ice hockey, and dedicate yourself to maintaining this identity for several months; like all relationships, they develop over time and the insights you glean from the experience will as well.
The social media really is social—meaning it is people that make these networks, and only technology that connects them. Living online within these subgroups will likely not yield hard data that can be extrapolated into servicable sets, and so it should be; it is the subtle nuances of culture that we gain from this experience that allows us to create more understanding between subgroups, and learn how to connect with people who are different, or maybe not really so different, from us after all. Of course, you never know who you're really talking with either, do you...
