1y ago

Does it feel like the fediverse is exclusively used by older tech nerds?

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?

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1.3K comments

Gen Z Tech enthusiast here; I hope more Zoomers join.
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.
- Ikr, ever since I was kid I was told that I am part of generation that knows it's way around tech. Growing up and realizing that most of gen z can't comprehend simple IT related concepts was... disappointing.
  Though at least they are aware that they need to remember their own passwords (looking at you boomers).
  
  Gen X and Millennials are the only ones that really needed to go through the early stages of operating systems. Having to get anything done required you to learn a lot.
  
  Gen X and Millennials are the only ones that really needed to go through the early stages of operating systems
  Yeah, we boomers didn't have to learn them because we frickin invented them.
  Down votes INCOMING!!!
  
  In the other hand, I'm impressed with zoomers ability to produce contents with nothing but their phone. A 30-something old fart like me is stuck with the mentality of anything productive like video or image editing require the use of desktop, which apparently not true anymore.
  
  So true. Those of us that became productive and proficient with PCs while growing up with desktop computers had a hard time taking smartphone/ipad productivity seriously. We got stuck in our own bubble as the phone platforms just got more capable.
  
  Man, I feel this in my bones. I was SUCH a luddite about tablets for YEARS, and to this day I don’t really ever use my phone for “serious” things… despite the fact that my current phone (iPhone 12 - waiting for usb-c on the 15) technically has about 3x single core and 2x multi core performance compared to the computer I built a decade ago (2600KF) while using a little over 7% of the power.
  
  I run into this issue regularly
  
  It's because even children can be scarily good at specific things. I have a cousin (she's a child) and has a YouTube channel, knows her way around content creation to a basic extent but absolutely can't print a document or use MS Word. She was good at using phones when she was a toddler. So she got really good at the things she cared about and didn't bother with the rest. The older generation didn't have stuff like this to begin with, so of course they would take longer to learn stuff than a person who lives with it and around it from the time they were born.
  
  I've known about basic computer knowledge since I was a little kid, sneaking around playing half life 2 because my mom wouldn't let me. It's astonishing to me that some people don't understand even the surface level of how a computer works
  
  some people don’t understand even the surface level of how a computer works
  Most people don't understand even the surface level of how a car works, but it's not needed, they can drive. Same with computers, you don't need to understand how they work in order to use them, thanks to MS & Apple (no, I will not include Linus Torvalds).
  
  you don't need to understand them
  Part of the problem is that there are a lotof people who not only don't understand, they don't want to, and will actively try to avoid it, even if it's required for their job. I have a coworker who will actively sabotage her tasks that involve even basic office use because she hates tech. Just yesterday she managed to lock herself permanently out of her apple account and lost EVERYTHING because she refused to do any kind of setup to make sure she knew her passwords or had her shit backed up. Years of stuff gone.
  There's a lot of people out there like that.
  
  You can include Google as well as Linus, considering the majority of compute hardware on the globe exists due to those two entities.
  
  People don’t need to know how an engine works, the same way I don’t necessarily know how a BIOS or a kernel work. Their understanding of computers is worse than that. For cars, they understand that the gas pedal and gear makes it go forward or backward, the wheel turns it, and brakes stop.
  
  Sure, but with something so powerful and versatile at your fingertips, you'd think more people would at least want to know a little more
  
  I grew up with an Atari and a C64. We’d move them from room to room and you know, reconnect the cables as needed. I was confused when I came upon adults who couldn’t figure out how to connect their VCR to a TV or assemble a PC… I mean, the cables go into the things they fit into. Fuck, even building a desktop from parts works the same way.
  It used to be more common for people to look at a desktop OS and just freeze like “I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO”, like they’re going to break something if they do anything. I thought people would figure out wtf they were doing with computers when the internet got big, but it just led to things like tech support where you have to ask “what does the pop up alert SAY? Did you read it? What did it tell you to do?”
  
  I teach 18 year olds and up. When I started, I assumed that everyone would know basic things, like creating folders or copying and pasting with a mouse. I'm surprised how often I have to teach them computer basics.
  
  Teachers have a difficult time these days with students who don’t comprehend the concept of a hierarchal file system because iOS associates files with apps and not a directory structure.
  
  Same! If you know of any online courses suitable for postsecondary students looking to build tech skills I would appreciate it, otherwise I might need to try getting a duty reallocation for a bit to put time into building one.
  
  Why remember password when I can just use a sticky note to stick it in the monitor?
  
  How much do you know about the inner workings of an internal combustion engine, yet do you still drive?
  It’s a good thing imo that we’ve abstracted away the complexity of tech to make it more usable. It was a pain in the ass before (so says one of the “old” techies on lemmy haha)
  
  I agree with this, but we'd need to draw lines in the analogy. For example, my CS students struggle with downloading and installing a program and don't know how to locate find files that they've saved in a text editor. We'd be concerned if the people driving didn't know where their turn signal was, hah.
  A lot of students grew up using Chromebooks as their primary computer, so they're largely limited to app stores and web browsers.
  
  How much do you know about the inner workings of an internal combustion engine, yet do you still drive?
  A fair bit from a theoretical perspective, actually. I've got a copy of Fundamentals of Motor Vehicle Technology on my shelf and I figure 50 years ago, I'd have been one of those people taking apart and putting together a motorcycle engine during the summer instead of figuring out how computers worked.
  
  jokes on you, every one just use the same password or apple/google automatically save them
  
  why i answered too times?, i didn't even pressed enter 2 times hmm
- 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.
  
  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.
  
  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.
  
  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
- 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.
  
  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.
  
  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.
  
  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.
  
  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!
  
  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.
  
  I think it might be some kind of expectation that since it's a dialogue on a computer it's automatically going to be something complex and technical.
  A couple of years back the company I worked for developed a website for this other company. Our point of contact had previously worked with us at a previous company, so he knew people at our company already. He had the designer's phone number (mistake) and would frequently just call her the moment he hit send on an email. "Hey did you see my email???"
  He absolutely refused to learn how computers worked, at all, which was odd given his role was lead for digital marketing. One stand-out moment was when he emailed us "URGENT FIX NOW!!! WEBSITE BROKEN!" The designer and I both freaked out for a second, until we checked the site and everything seemed to be working correctly. We then asked him what exactly was wrong with it, and he sent a photo of his laptop screen. In the system tray, the internet icon was crossed out.
  Dude had a laptop with one of those physical wifi switches. He'd switched it off, tried to access the website. Then gone on his phone to email us that it wasn't working. The error message was along the lines of "You don't have an internet connection."
  I no longer have contact with clients, and it's a blessing.
  
  Yeah, I think you're exactly right. They expect that they won't be able to understand or act on any sort of computer problem. That's what I was hoping people would figure out from experience - that they don't have to be scared to read it, click around and give it a try.
  I dealt with similar things when we had a fairly busy website back in the PHP/MySQL days, around 2008-09. My business partner was a great designer but not technical at all, and was a bit uptight about our site. She didn't report imaginary problems, but if there was any sort of service interruption she'd act like it was the end of the world and stress me out about it even more than i was already stressed. I still wonder whether it would have been better to just run the site by myself.
  
  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.
- 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 😞.
  
  I am sad to say that I am writing this on Linux
  I think you dropped this: 👑
  
  mac user here :) at least we can unite in unix
- fellow zoomer here, i agree
- 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
- Yupp, older zoomer here. The thought of decentralized anything seems cooler to me so I thought I'd give it a try
- Gen Z here 😉
- Im also older GenZ and I only found Lemmy and the Fediverse today
  I think of myself as above average in Tech and Internet Knowledge but there is so much to know and so many things to not get.
  Tech is ridiculously "complicated" in that it has little parallels to other aspects of life. Also the sheer size of knowledge you need to have to get deep into it can be very disappealing
  [Example] want to set up your own vpn looking for a guide and you only see guides you have never Heard before you look up these words to understand it only to find many explinations with other words you have never seen before
  Im doing my best to understand many things but I dont have the time or the motivation to Learn everything
  And I think many people are like me Maybe they dont even want to learn the things because their interest are in a completely different field
  Dunno maybe im just dumb idk
- 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.

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