Only 1 in 20 Americans Use Twitter

(MoneyWatch)  If you prefer bad news, a new Harris Poll reports that only 5 percent of Americans are using Twitter so far.

If, on the other hand, you prefer good news, this means that the upside for Twitter, the fastest-growing service in our time, hasn't even begun to be realized.

The Harris findings also indicate that 51 percent of Americans do not yet have a MySpace or Facebook account. Again, depending on your perspective, there is lots of upside here.

Parsing the data further, there are other useful findings:

• 74 percent of those aged 18-34 years old have a Facebook or MySpace account, but this quickly drops off the older one gets. Only 24 percent of those 55 and older, for example, have an account.
• 8 percent of 18-34 year olds use Twitter, 7 percent of those 35-44 use it; 4 percent of those aged 45-54 and just 1 percent of those 55 and older use it.
• Men and women use Twitter at the same levels, but women are more likely to have a Facebook or MySpace account (52% versus 45%).