The mastodon and lemmy content I’m seeing feels like 90% of it comes from people who are:

  • ~30 years old or older

  • tech enthusiasts/workers

  • linux users

There’s nothing wrong with that particular demographic or anything, but it doesn’t feel like a win to me if the entire fediverse is just one big monoculture.

I wonder what it is that is keeping more diverse users away? Is picking a server/federation too complicated? Or is it that they don’t see any content that they like?

Thoughts?

    • half_fiction@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      1 year ago

      At work I’ve been thrust into a support function for some random system (I’m in analytics) and one of the roles I work with is fairly entry level, so lots of younger folk. I have been floored by some of the basic-ass shit I’ve walked them through. (Like explaining that you can copy and paste the url into a browser if the link isn’t clickable for whatever reason. Also had to clarify what url meant–is this not a common term anymore?) I had just assumed that because they’re younger and grew up with the internet, they’d smoke the hell out of me. But I guess interfaces are so streamlined these days many got away with never having to learn basic troubleshooting the same way I did as a millennial.

      • jerdle_lemmy@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        1 year ago

        It’s because they grew up with it rather than actively learning it. UIs have started to hide the actual details, so the users don’t pick them up.

        • fishcurry509@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          1 year ago

          UIs have started to hide the actual details

          This is what it’s really about. There’s no need to understand the nuts and bolts because now the software obfuscates all of that.

      • cyanarchy@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        URL is very much an out of date term, as far as general use goes. People think in terms of “links”, and if they understand a little more they’ll likely respond to you talking about an “address”. Most of an entire generation only really interacts with these concepts through the streamlined methods of a phone or tablet interface, which have gone out of their way to hide scary concepts like the actual file system.

        Source: late-model millenial

    • Dojan@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      I used to play SMITE with a kid, and he didn’t really know anything computer related. It was a bit shocking to me since I always just expected that future generations would become more and more tech literate, but I think smartphones kind of screwed that.

      • zeppo@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Smartphones truly brought computing to the masses more than desktop OSs, and true, the majority of people have no idea what they’re doing. But… prior to smartphones they wouldn’t have been using a computing device at all.

        • Dojan@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 year ago

          Oh yeah absolutely. It just really baffled me he first time I had that sort of interaction with someone younger than me.

          There will always be enthusiasts and nerds, but I rather thought that computer literacy would be more widespread than it turned out.

          • zeppo@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            Me too. In the 90s, when word processing and then the internet went mainstream, I thought that that average people would finally learn basic computer concepts and stop acting like it was super-confusing… just simple things like, what is a file? What is an executable? How do I organize my system? At the most basic, how do I plug all the wires together to set a desktop up? (This one always drove me nuts because there is literally only one cord and socket that fit together for each component).

            Instead we ended up with millions of people running Windows 98 with 8 viruses at once and a desktop full of icons, and nonsense like “I’m calling the Geek Squad to come to my house fix my PC!” or harassing the youngest person they know to fix it for them. I can’t count how many times I had to fix my mother or aunt’s computer, then someone would fuck it up again by downloading HottestAlbumListenNow.mp3.exe. The current situation with many people’s Android phones is about as horrifying, with 20 spyware casino apps at once, and they don’t even know where they got them from. Around 2010, I got so tired of my mother saying “my computer’s broken! can you fix it?” that I installed Linux on her machine, and it was somewhat confusing for her for a while as in “How do I get the photos from my camera?” but entirely ended the constant virus/spyware bullshit. Eventually she got a Chromebook, which had the same advantage vs. Windows.

            It’s a shame to just have to dumb things down or hide complexity but I think the best choice to give the average person a system like ChromeOS or iOS that they simply can’t fuck up with viruses or spyware. People have demonstrated that they aren’t going to take the time to figure it out.

            • Dojan@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              Ugh, that all sounds really familiar to me too. Boggles the mind that people can’t plug things in, it’s just a case of finding what cord goes from where, and which port it fits in. It’s really difficult to get it wrong. I think the thing I hated the most was being called over to literally read a dialogue. “I was working on my document and this popped up!!”

              Do you want to save your document? (Yes/No)

              Like please, just read what it says instead of freaking out every time something pops up!

              • zeppo@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                Ha! I have the exact same issue with people and dialogues, like “Okay… did you read it? What did it say?” Somehow they don’t seem to understand that there are words on the screen which are there to tell them information.

                • RivenRise@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  I tried helping my ex brother in law over the phone and he couldn’t grasp the concept of right clicking. I told him to just hold on and I would help him when I was back in town.

                  I know he knows how to right click but when given the instruction to right click on something he somehow forgets what a right click is.

    • DuncanTDP@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I am a fellow gen Z Tech enthusiast, but to be honest the age of users on Lemmy has never crossed my mind. But I am sad to say that I am writing this on Linux 😞.

    • tool@r.rosettast0ned.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      The fact that a majority of even the older Gen Z (like me) have been reported to not understand file systems or general tech and internet knowledge is scary.

      I think it’s to be expected. When the majority of your tech use is with a phone/tablet, concepts like filesystems are abstracted away from you.

      The same goes for troubleshooting that tech, as the most helpful error message you generally get from those kinds of devices boils down to a graphic of a sad face and a completely useless “Something went wrong” type of error message.

    • twistedtxb@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Before 3pa were banned on Reddit I tried to convince people to join Lemmy, and the general consensus was that it was “too complicated”

      Its oversimplified but yet I feel like the new generation never had to understand tech basics prior to enjoying it.

      It’s a good thing overall, but yeah… Might be a bit scary too