Singapore tech-blogger Xavier Lui wrote an insightful blog post entitled “Why Teens Don’t Use Twitter”. I would question some reasons he gives; for example teens sends enough SMSes to prove that the 140 character limit is not an obstacle for their communication. Most of their Facebook updates and statuses are often short and terse.

Xavier states that teens thrive on Facebook and not on Twitter because they would rather interact with friends, and makes the assumption that adults use Twitter for more journalistic and marketing purposes.

As a “post-teen”, I am extremely active on Twitter, but not because I rely on it for news or utilise it to sell any products I might have. The reason why post-teens use Twitter is because as you grow older, your social circle evolves and a new important group emerges:

Peers.

Peers are perhaps the most influential group within an individual’s social circle. Peers are people you think are like yourself. They need not be friends; they could be people you admire, visionaries in the same field of work or have similar tastes in fashion or art.

In short, peers are people you want to be associated with, and ultimately become.

Twitter allows us to dissect the universe of people out there and carve out a subset with whom we find an affinity with. Twitter does not require reciprocation, so one-way relationships are possible. For example, I want very much to think and design like Dan Cederholm, but he probably doesn’t give two hoots about who I am, so I’d naturally follow him on Twitter and not vice-versa. Friend-based social networks do not allow these relationships. The upside for Twitter is huge because the circle of peers is larger and more personally influential than the circle of friends.

Up till teenhood and perhaps college, we are largely homogenous. Our differences do not become apparent until we get jobs and settle down with a more stable sense of self-identity. At that stage, we find ourselves unlike the friends we grew up with, and we venture out to find others more like ourselves with whom we can share and communicate with.

That’s why we use Twitter.

And LinkedIn, Foursquare, Facebook, Flickr, Vimeo and a host of other networking sites. Because our social networks have evolved numerous layers, each one different from the other.