Mexico's Twitter Users Are Female Slackers—Just Like in the U.S.

A recent study of Twitter use across the border shows fascinating similarities to—and differences from—use in the United States.

According to an analysis by Mente Digital, a Mexico City-based e-marketing and social media company, 52 percent of Mexico’s Twitter users are female, and they post 2.5 times as much as men.

These numbers are the opposite of some U.S. studies: In early 2009, a Nielsen Mobile study found 57 percent of Twitter users to be male, while another cited 58 percent of “active” users (meaning they posted 10 times or more a week). These number may have shifted since then, though: A later and larger Harvard Business Review study found 55 percent of users to be female.

Whatever their gender, neither country is burning through their broadband: Of Mexico’s about 4.1 million users, only about 2.9 million have posted in the last 60 days. In the U.S., according to the HBR, over half of users post less than once every 72 days. (The median number of lifetime tweets is, uh, one.)

Interestingly, overall Latino Twitter stayed steady across the border: 13.4 percent of Mexican internet users are on Twitter, according to Mente Digital, closely matching the 13 percent of U.S. Latinos tallied by the Pew Internet and American Life Project in December. (Numbers for the overall American population were less, at about 8 percent. Numbers were tabulated differently, however: Mente Digital scoured public Twitter feeds, while Pew relied largely on interviews.)

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Again as in the U.S., most Mexican users live in urban areas: A full 60 percent of the Mexican users were in the capital city alone.

And when they talk across borders (which is in 9 percent of the cases), they’re not looking north: Of interactions with people in other countries, most are with Argentina, with Spain and then the U.S. following behind.