I get asked by a lot of folks about Twitter stats. Usually something along the lines of, “So besides PR goons and technogeeks, just who is Twittering?”

New research from Pew’s December polling shows online microblogging services are used by 11 percent of online Americans, which is up from 9 percent of online Americans using the service in November.

That number may sound small, but when you dive into the data, it shows, “nearly one in five (19%) online adults ages 18 and 24 have ever used Twitter and its ilk, as have 20% of online adults 25 to 34. Use of these services drops off steadily after age 35 with 10% of 35 to 44 year olds and 5% of 45 to 54 year olds using Twitter. The decline is even more stark among older internet users; 4% of 55-64 year olds and 2% of those 65 and older use Twitter.”

That one in five adults 18-24 have “used a service like Twitter that allows you to share updates of yourself and read updates from others” is golden. I did a quick search, and it seems one in five adults also take aspirin regularly. It’s hard to argue about the popularity of aspirin.

However, it’s important to note that this could also include Facebook status updates, among others, which are definitely more mainstream than Twitter, specifically.

Some other golden Twitter stats:

  • The median age of a Twitter user is 31. In comparison, the median age of a MySpace user is 27, Facebook user is 26 and LinkedIn user is 40.7
  • Twitter users are slightly more racially and ethnically diverse than is the full U.S. population, most likely because they are younger – and younger Americans are a more ethnically and racially diverse group than is the full population.
  • Twitter users are also slightly more likely to live in urban areas, with 35% of Twitter users living in urban areas (compared to 29% of all internet users) and just 9% of Twitterers and status updaters living in rural areas, compared to 17% of internet users.
  • More than three-quarters (76%) of Twitter users use the internet wirelessly – either on a laptop with a wireless connection, or via PDA, handheld or cell phone.
  • Twitter users are more likely to use their cell phone to text and go online.
  • Twitterers are less likely to read a printed copy of a newspaper, but more likely to read a newspaper online (76% vs. 60% of non-Twitter users), and more likely to read a news story on a cell phone (14% vs. 6%) or on a smart phone (17% vs. 7%).
  • Twitter users are just as likely as others to watch news on a TV, and just as likely to watch video news on a computer, but more likely to watch a news video on a cell phone (6% vs. 1%) or on a smart phone (8% vs. 1%).
  • Twitter users are also significant consumers of blog content: 21% read someone else’s blog “yesterday” and 57% of Twitterers have ever read a blog.

Download the Pew memo here.

UPDATE: I corrected my paragraph above about 1 in 5 use Twitter to more accurately reflect the studies findings. Thanks Claire! -G.