Seems like just about everyone’s tweeting these days, but a new survey finds that for now, only 8 percent of adults in the U.S. are using Twitter, reports AOL news. That said, nearly one in four of those who do tweet check their feeds “several” times a day. The latest findings of the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that Twitter is most popular among women, with 10 percent of those who are online tweeting versus seven percent of men. Young adults also rated high, with 14 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 29 hip to the ways of Twitter. Unsurprisingly, the percentage of Twitter users drops as the age brackets get higher, with just 7 percent of those aged 30-49 on Twitter, and a mere 4 percent of those 65 and up admitting to tweeting. Disappointingly, though, the Pew survey doesn’t include teenagers–who, as we learned through a variety of surveys last year, aren’t all that into tweeting. (Or at least they weren’t a year ago.) ReadWriteWeb has an interesting essay by a precocious 16-year-old who tells us that today’s teens would rather “extend their real social connections onto the internet” than merely engage in “self-promotion” or “follow interests immediately.” That’s why Facebook “has almost everything a teen could want,” while Twitter “offers no value to teenagers,” writes RWW guest author Michael-Moore Jones (who is on Twitter, by the way). Teens: Agree? Disagree? Statistical breakdowns aside, Pew is basically telling us that 92 percent of online U.S. adults don’t bother with Twitter. Here’s the thing, though: Those who are tweeting are well-nigh addicted…
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Facebook bullies charged after victim tracks them down
When 18-year-old Ally Pfeiffer found a Facebook profile impersonating her and replacing her photograph with a picture of a cow to mock her weight, she cried. However, the Connecticut teen fought back, found the IP address for the bogus page and helped police trace the cruel behavior back to Sarah Johnson and Jeff Martone, her former classmates at a Bristol, Conn., high school, reports AOL News. And now, Johnson and Martone, both freshmen at the University of Connecticut, have been charged with criminal impersonation and second-degree harassment. Pfeiffer said she’s speaking out about her experience because she hopes it will prevent other young people from going through the pain she did. “If I help one teen or if I make one bully think twice before doing something I would feel 100 percent better,” she said in an interview with NBC’s “Today” show this morning. Both Martone, 19, and Johnson, 18, have admitted to creating the fake Facebook profile, which listed Pfeiffer’s “likes” as “being fat,” “whales,” “Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream” and “not running.” Pfeiffer said she and Johnson were close friends in high school. “When I first saw the page, I was completely devastated. I didn’t know who had done it at this point and was questioning why they chose me, why they’d say those things about me,” she told WFSB.com. But Pfeiffer, a freshman at the University of Hartford, said she didn’t want to let the cyberbullying ruin her life. “Some of my friends would have hung themselves over this,” she told the Bristol Press. “So I’m just glad that [Martone and Johnson] got a stable person trying to take a positive approach to dealing with it rather than someone who could have taken different action.”
Cyberbullying has gained increased scrutiny since the death of Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi earlier this year, who killed himself after his classmates allegedly posted a video of him having sex with another man…
Teaching by texting starts to take hold
A growing number of educators believe that texting can be a teaching tool, AOL News reports. For subjects ranging from Spanish to science, and for uses ranging from homework help to exam reminders, teachers around the country are beginning to allow students to text in class. “You’ve got a classroom full of students walking in with a computer in their pocket. Why would you not use it?” said Ron Smith, who has defied district policy for the past five years to allow cell-phone use in his high school art and design classes in Hollywood, Calif. At Chester Middle School, an hour north of New York City, Principal Ernie Jackson, 52, challenged his staff to teach poetry using text messaging. He then gave an old version of a state test to those students who texted in summaries of the poems and to those who learned the poems in a traditional manner. The result: Those who texted averaged 80 percent on the exam, versus 40 percent for those who didn’t. “If the kids are motivated, they do better than if they’re not. The kids are very motivated about doing this,” Jackson said in a telephone interview with AOL News…
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