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I’m not quite sure how a NYT piece on Twitter ended-up in the “Fashion & Style” section, but it’s an interesting read nonetheless.

Michelle Slatalla (or should that be @slatalla) explains her attempts to convince her teenage daughters to use Twitter as a broadcast system for family updates. Unfortunately, despite being “superconnected” her kids feel Twitter is spammy or some kind of surveillance–rather than a tool for knowing where mom is.

Towards the end of the piece we learn that perhaps Twitter’s destined to be the tool of marketers and PR folks–those of us that are obsessed with promoting ourselves. According to Walter J. Carl, an assistant professor of communications studies at Northeastern University:

“The people who I see using it are an older demographic, people in marketing or P.R. or advertising, who use it for work, to present themselves as particular types of people. They’ll twitter, ‘I’m traveling,’ or ‘I’m going to interesting restaurants.’ They’re using it to do identity work.”

Normally I’m skeptical of the “professor” types that are all theory and no real-experience–I only know one that’s practicing what she preaches–but maybe Professor Carl has a point.

Anyone have any data on how many of the 1+ million Twitter users are not concerned in promoting either themselves or their company? Or how many Twitter users are under 20?

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