This week, Janet Street Porter became the latest journalist to jump on the twitter-bashing bandwagon. In her column for the Independent, she describes twitter as something to allow “middle aged, middle class, work weary wannaby trendies” to “exchange mindlessness”, an area in which she is well versed, judging by the body of her work.

Janet Street Porter joins other journalists such as Jackie Ashley, Bryony Gordon, Terence Blacker and Andrew Orlowski, who apparently confuse Twitter with their own columns, questioning why anyone would want to read the endless ramblings of individuals intent only on attracting followers. With egos replacing talent, they resort to upsetting the most people possible in order to achieve notoriety; the journalistic equivalent of swine flu.

I’m not going to get into the counter-arguments and explain why Twitter is a great thing. Anyone that actually uses it knows that. And if you’re not on twitter yet, just read the comments at the bottom of the above links. That is, assuming comments are allowed – I’m looking at you, Orlowski.

But what really gets on my moobs is Janet Street Porter’s exploitation of usage statistics to justify her personal opinion. “Teenagers have already sussed twitter is crap” because “only 16% of people twittering are under 25” she claims.

Firstly, usage statistics per se are meaningless when it comes to measuring quality. Ten million people watch Britain’s Got Talent, but it is nevertheless utter utter shit.

Secondly, Porter has misinterpreted the study results. If she had done her research, she would know that most adolescents use social networking sites to reinforce existing relationships, rather than make new friends. This is contrary to how people use twitter; they create new networks of friends and acquaintances based on common interests.

So labelling twitter as “crap” because few teens are using it is no different to labelling sex as crap because few ten year olds are doing it. Ironically, Porter demands an “intelligent review written in real sentences”, whilst failing to provide us with anything of the sort. (David Miliband is not on twitter, Janet – it was exposed as a fake account weeks ago.)

People use social networking sites that complement their offline behaviour. And twitter’s predominant use is to connect people who don’t know each other or don’t know each other very well. That appeals to the 20 plus’s. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s normal and even, dare I suggest, healthy.

But Porter and others insist you simply must meet new people offline or not at all. You know, at work or parties or school open days, where you’ve nothing in common apart from sharing the same air. They consider their method for social interaction superior, when in reality, they are lost in another decade and oblivious to it.

Twitter’s journo critics aren’t all old fogies who don’t understand the interwebs. Some of them are simply snobs. They brand twitter as “crap” to excuse them from using it, because it’s preferable to admitting that they simply don’t want to share their journalistic space with millions of others who, collectively, may actually do a better job than they do. Where they become one twitterer amongst millions, rather than one Independent writer amongst several. Nor do they want their rants limited to 140 characters or, god forbid, someone tweeting a criticism of their work, where every tweet is equal.

I have a suggestion for these twitter critics. They should set up twitter accounts and follow only each other. They can tweet to their hearts’ content about all the things so very wrong with using twitter, to the applause of the others, as traditional journalism crashes down around them. And we can choose not to follow them.