Another day, another survey full of data and ideas on why teens are not flocking to Twitter like we think they should.  TechCrunch guest Author Geoff Cook (co-founder & CEO of myYearbook) posts his results from a survey of about 10,000 teens, ages 12 – 17, and comes up with some interesting results.

According to comScore, Twitter’s unique visitor composition index in the 12 – 17 age group is 118 (a value over 100 represents a higher concentration of unique visitors from that age group as compared to the age group’s concentration across the entire web). More interestingly, Twitter’s 12 – 17 composition index of 118 is higher than its composition index in the 25 – 34 and 35 – 44 age groups. -

The most interesting take away from this survey is to keep a level head when looking at these numbers and percentages, where we see that twitter has attracted more teens than Facebook over the past year, but it looks like they have just as high drop off rate as other groups mentioned in an April 2009 Nielsen post.  It is nice to know that the majority of teens surveyed don’t feel that a lack of data plan, or a limit in the amount of texts (SMS) per month are limiting with the service, but feel more that is just a “fad” more than anything else.

The question of “Why Don’t Teens Use Twitter?” is the question of “Why Doesn’t Everyone Use Twitter?” The answer, it would seem, is both obvious and heretical … maybe Twitter isn’t for everyone.

Where does that leave us with Twitter, or social networks in Higher Ed?  I for one, have drunk the Twitter Kool-Aid, and love engaging my network instantly, but am acutely aware that not every faculty member, or student on campus looks at the tool in the same way.  Do we scrap trying to use this tool to engage our students, or do we approach it with caution and think a little more as to why we are using this tool and if there is a better or more appropriate one to use in our classroom?