Several weeks into the #TwitterMigration it seems clear to me the value of Mastodon is not that it is a Twitter replacement, but that it is a gateway technology to decentralization. Mastodon has flaws, I'm not claiming it's perfect, but many criticisms I've seen stem from expecting centralized services from a decentralized structure. It's up to us to try and explain the differences and set expectations for what alternative services can look like.
To this extent I'm really interested to know how the age breakdown of people on the #Fediverse. On one hand it would seem to make sense to me that most people here remember the "old internet" before the centralization and they're here to rekindle that flame of independence. On the other hand the youths are generally pretty up on this whole technology thing. I grew up on the internet and since then smartphones have become even more ubiquitous.
(Please boost for reach)
@Jewishreader considering that I just make up these options on the spot I think that's pretty fair. No one is going to mistake me for a demographer!
@mcneely wow, surprised (so far)
@mcneely looks like GenX is in the lead.
@Shatter242 @mcneely for once we are the bigger demographic. Interesting. Probably another reason why I really like this platform.
@mcneely @Htaggert @Shatter242 glad it wasn’t just me thinking this haha.
@Shatter242 @mcneely I am a 41 yo millennial 🤷♂️. The options are just one year off. Not that it matters - those age cohorts splits are defined for the US and I am not American. On a related note, I suspect that this platform is also less US centric.
@donchev @mcneely and all of your points I consider positives.
We also have a thing now called Xennial for those in the range of 1-2 years that feel like a foot in two gens, and that's cool too.
I'm pretty easy going about all things and ages and country of origin. Echo chambers suck. As long as people are cool and not a fascist, they're usually fine by me. 😊
@mcneely 'the youths are generally pretty up on this whole technology thing'
I try to be careful about the conclusions I drew from that sort of thought. I was talking to someone who teaches computer science at uni and they were saying they've needed to start teaching 1st year students about directory structures because that's not really part of how 'the youths' are interacting with software anymore. It's all searching and curated experiences on smart devices that hide that sort of detail away.
there have been a number of these age surveys tooted recently, in both English and German. One thing that is common to all of them is a *lot* (at least or slightly over half) of Fedi users are Gen X and next to that are Millenials (many of whom are in late 20s or 30s now), and the age range of Fedi users swings a lot older than might be expected for a "cool new thing" (there's a fair few Boomers on here as well, particularly from Northern Europe)
@thrashcardiom @drV @mcneely
As a genZ er studying computer science, this is not entirely incorrect.
@drV @mcneely I was at an arcade a few years back. A child of about 10 sat beside me at a racecar game. She couldn't figure out how to interact with the game interface. No matter how much or where she was touching the video screen it wouldn't work for her....
That made me feel really old. It reminded me of that scene in Back to the Future II...if you're in my age range you probably know what I'm talking about!
@taco @drV @mcneely Can confirm, Gen Z and younger have zero arcade literacy and have to be explicitly told money goes in the slot here, press here if coin jams, here's how to even TELL if the coin's jammed, press this button to start etc; nobody showed them and none of it was written down (because why write it down when Everybody Knows) so they just don't know.
The things we don't write down and document because Why Bother Everybody Knows are exactly the things that 20 years later Nobody Knows
@ifixcoinops @taco @drV @mcneely whereas my mam (who can cope with tech, but not intuitively) documents every single possible step.
On moving roles, she would leave behind her (physical) notebook of instructions.
I always told her that she missed her true calling.
Thankfully my 3yr old niece is able to use a mouse as well as a touchscreen and likes the keyboard so much that we are getting her one as a gift.
Any recommendations on keyboards suitable for 4yr olds (can take crumbs, spillages etc)?
@DToher @taco @drV @mcneely We just told ours no food or drink near the computer, but if you see that coming up despite your best efforts I reckon the ideal method is several 50p charity shop keyboards so you can have a couple of backups ready to go. :)
My mam does the same thing. These days uses the computer so rarely that when she turns it on it queues a bunch of updates and when it's finally done the interface has changed for no particular reason. Computers: they're shite
@DToher @ifixcoinops @taco @drV @mcneely My idea is a keyboard cover but I don't know how practical that would actually be for a 4yo — my 3yo would have a lot of fun taking it off and playing with it!
You could also consider getting her a small mouse — some of the portable wireless ones are great for tiny kid hands.
@DToher @ifixcoinops @drV @mcneely I suggest maybe a silicon keyboard where the keys can't easily pop off. It's basically one big sealed piece of material.
Search for Sungwoo Foldable Silicone Keyboard on Amazon. It's fairly inexpensive at the moment and I can see it working well for a 4 year old and easy clean where crumbs and liquids shouldn't break it.
@ifixcoinops @taco @drV @mcneely To be fair, most of us GenZ-ers have never stepped foot into an arcade, having grown up with video game consoles. But there's still plenty of media around arcades. I think we'd figure out how to put a coin in the game.
That said, I did not know coins could jam. Like it makes sense but I've never considered it. How would you unjam the machine?
@Charlie @taco @drV @mcneely I have a massive thread incoming on the failings of American currency and how that affects jamming in mechanical coin mechs but tl;dr: machines in other countries don't jam, when an American machine jams press on the plastic of the coin slot or look for a round metal button nearby or underneath. If that doesn't work, call the dude over straight away before someone else puts money in and jams it up even harder. :P
@drV @mcneely As someone who meets youths and kids and their digital behavior very often (media educator at a library), I can second that. Mobile devices tend to hide the inner workings of computational devices. Since these are pushed down the throat of educational institutions by politicians and others not primarily interested in educating actual IT concepts, this will get worse in the near future.
@drV @mcneely I agree--college students that I work with are near incompetent when it comes to using computers (beyond face time and texting). I have to teach them how to save files in software (because their tablets don't work that way, one student told me). How to access the C: drive. How to resize Windows. They don't know ctrl-c. They don't know what a giga or a tera is, much less a byte. Or RAM.
@mcneely nice try fed
@mcneely oh sweet, a data collection thread
@mcneely I asked my daughter of 23 - she's never heard of Mastodon... I suspect it's an old people's game 😝
@mcneely Suppose, but please let’s just suppose, I’m 30, should I already be called an old tiller? 😂
@mcneely from what I've gathered, largely anecdotal of course, just the sense I've gotten from reading toots is that the crowd here is largely: older (40s-50s), huge chunk are Linux users, and tech-savvy. I fit in perfectly :)
@mcneely Wow, I'm a geezer in the 6% 🤔
@securecompliance @mcneely Ivy isn’t sure any of them know what they’re talking about. Here’s to rotary dials and party lines!
@mcneely Old enough to remember the days of 300 baud modems and Decwriters.
"My web" grows older with me. :)
@mcneely To be fair I didn't expect to be in such a minority. Only 10% as of now seems extremely small, but I might be biased, as my local feed recently consist mostly of younger twitter expats. Nevertheless, that's a really interesting statistic to look at.
@mcneely Well, that explains the absolute radio silence in response to my email to the kids wherein I proudly provided a signup link to our new private family Mastodon server.
@mcneely these age brackets are something. Not me complaining about being almost too old. 🥲
Boomers, REPRESENT!! \m/
@mcneely I'm not very surprised that the 41-60 group is more represented, it would line up neatly with your feeling on the "old internet".
@mcneely very interesting so far, we're old.
@mcneely Not sure how to answer this one since my birthday is Weds and I'll be switching categories.
@mcneely Compu$erve, Usenet, ... I never actually used dial-in bulletin boards.
@mcneely I am fairly young (25 years) and I would love the Internet to be more decentralized and independent. Even though I unfortunately never experienced the “old” web (the good web). Mastodon is a ray of hope for me.
@mcneely I think results are going to skew because a lot of gen z are on TikTok or BeReal or whatever, they weren’t on the birdsite either.
@mcneely yes but I still have trouble loading rec.mastodon.fun.fun.fun
@mcneely many fediverse instances are very young, teens and early twenties, particularly in fandom communities that run on misskey and pleroma and akkoma. i guarantee your survey won’t reach them, but in many fediverse areas. they were here first.
@mikarv yeah that was sort of what I was imagining. There seems to be a general sense of "haha we're doomed and being exploited" that pervades the younger generations so a decentralized as free experience would seem like an attractive alternative. And like you say, fandom knows no limits. But I wasn't sure I would reach those communities either 🤷♂️
Please @mikarv if you have them give me some references (instance links or usernames), I would love to get in touch!
(Also because I am going to found a new little and cozy platform on https://pan.rent and I would love to involve active and enthusiastic young people)
@mcneely I cheated a bit as I'll move my bracket to 41 in less than a month. 😂