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?

  • skomposzczet@vlemmy.net
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    1 year ago

    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).

    • terny@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • cryomancer20x6@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        Nothing says older millennial quite like having to learn how to edit config.sys with no help from the internet in order to get the sound working for a game that came in a shareware collection.

    • BackStabbath@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      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.

    • halyk.the.red@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • zeppo@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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.

      • PixelProf@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        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.

    • illah@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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)

      • PixelProf@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        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.

    • Vilian@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      jokes on you, every one just use the same password or apple/google automatically save them

      • Vilian@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        why i answered too times?, i didn’t even pressed enter 2 times hmm