Pew study: 8 percent of American adults online use Twitter

Eight percent of American adults who use the Internet use Twitter, according to a new Pew study out today that says the service is most popular among young adults, minorities and city-dwellers.
The study is the first survey from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project that looks specifically at Twitter. Pew in the past has taken the pulse of those who use Twitter or similar services to share updates about daily life.
The new survey also showed that 74% of American adults use the Internet. That means Twitter users amount to 6% of the entire adult population, Pew says.
Here's how the key demographics break down, from Pew:
Young adults -- Internet users ages 18-29 are significantly more likely to use Twitter than older adults.
African-Americans and Latinos -- Minority internet users are more than twice as likely to use Twitter as are white internet users.
Urbanites -- Urban residents are roughly twice as likely to use Twitter as rural dwellers
Pew also noted that a quarter of Twitter users check several times a day for tweets from others, while one in five don't check at all.
In September, Twitter launched a major redesign. The social-media service, then with 160 million users, said its use on mobile devices was up 250% this year.