I don’t have much of a problem either way as I don’t think I’ll be engaging in political discussion on this website past this post but it seems like any sort of non-left wing opinions or posts are immediately trashed on here. That’s fine. There’s clearly a more liberal audience here and that’s okay. I just don’t want Lemmy to become a echo chamber for any side and it seems to be that way when it comes to politics already.
Mostly making this post just to drum up discussion as I’m new here.
Edit: Thanks for the rational replies. I was expecting to get lit up for even mentioning this topic lol.
I would say that resistance to learning new things is not necessarily generational. It might get harder the older you get, but if you’re a baby boomer and are extremely familiar with how smart phones work, then you had to learn that technology as an adult. Like, the original iphone came out in like 2008. The youngest baby boomer would have been in their late 40s when they got their first smartphones. You don’t get to say “old people don’t like learning new technology” and “boomers only know how to use things on the smartphone” at the same time, because the material evidence for that is explicitly contradictory.
Primates can use smartphones. We’ve made the format so user friendly we have other species which can meaningfully interact with it. You don’t really “learn” how to use a smartphone, the designs are just that good now. Apple holds 57% of the cell phone mobile market, and their UI is nearly perfect for usability.
I have no metrics around user age groups cross referenced with occupation for federated social media. But I’m pretty sure you don’t either, so I’m not sure where your confidence on that statement is coming from.
There is like 70 thousand accounts across all of the lemmy instances, I’m sure people have multiple at this point to deal with limited federation. We have no metrics because this is all brand new and no one is collecting metrics, heck we don’t know if anyone will even collect metrics, the whole thing could become a dead mall before someone gets around to it. My hypothesis, which is by definition just a hunch, is that we can make some pretty strong guesses on the demographic makeup of lemmy. I would suspect the makeup is predominantly center left people in the united states who likely work in tech of some fashion, aged 24 to 35, and the younger demographics are going to skew left/far left (lemmygrad) and LGBT (Blahaj/196). I obviously have no solid evidence of this, I’m just going off the activity levels of the various instances. The OP in this question was whether lemmy was actively hostile to conservative viewpoints, and my response to that was and still is there isn’t going to be much of a conservative slant for lemmy yet because they have no reason to be here yet they have other social media that is infinitely more active than any lemmy instance.
Okay…just to make sure we’re on the same page: you do understand that if 44% of something comes from one thing, then 56% must necessarily come from something that is NOT that thing, and 56 is a bigger number than 44, right? Like, this specific statement directly contradicts itself.
I’m not sure if you missed the context I was going for, or are purpoefully misconstruding it? Reddit was a tiny website in the overall scheme of internet traffic wasn’t it (this is actually a question, I’m pretty sure it was very small overall), the vast majority of the internet is browsed through mobile devices, reddit was an outlier. Twitter, snapchat, tiktok, instagram, facebook, all of them are browsed in the majority on mobile. The demographics skew even more towards mobile when you go world wide and not just the U.S. Mobile devices completely dominate the internet worldwide.
Your underlying statement was based in a foundational premise that conservatives were too old and/or stupid to figure out how to use Lemmy, therefore Lemmy was “naturally” insulated from conservative perspectives. And now you’re saying they won’t join Lemmy instances because they have better existing options.
Yes, because none of those conservative groups are a monolith, they’re a much of a “big tent” as the left is in a lot of ways. Hardcore fascists aren’t browsing tiktok, they’re in smaller cells that converse in IRCs and other very hard to find niche groups. Run of the mill conservatives are mostly on things like voat, facebook, truthsocial, the_donald, basic run of the mill shit. There’s a big difference between your average conservative genx father and someone who would be right at home on stormfront. Just like there’s a big difference between your average live/laugh/love suburban mom who has a left slant and wants people to be happy, and a hardcore leftist that would gleefully put a billionaires head under a guillotine. There’s nuance and niche group within niche groups within niche groups.
Also, remember dude we’re on a very small instance, this isn’t reddit, we’re likely going to get to know each other relatively well if we frequent the same instances and conversations, this isn’t reddit where we’re going to get lost in a sea of accounts. Things are small enough that we’ll probably recognize each other on other instances. Just like back in the day when forums and image boards were gaining big traction. Lemmy is where Reddit was 12 years ago, and where 4chan was 20 years ago.
Humans are primates, my guy. Of course we can use smartphones. We invented them.
We’ve made the format so user friendly we have other species which can meaningfully interact with it. You don’t really “learn” how to use a smartphone, the designs are just that good now. Apple holds 57% of the cell phone mobile market, and their UI is nearly perfect for usability.
This is an insanely specious argument based in, seemingly, nothing. Like, I’m sorry but this is pure opinion. If you have citations for this, please share, otherwise I’m going to ignore it as entirely pointless and irrelevant to our discussion.
We have no metrics because this is all brand new and no one is collecting metrics
Probably a good reason not to making sweeping claims about composition of the ecosystem, then, huh?
My hypothesis, which is by definition just a hunch
Well, a hypothesis is an assumption. The underlying definition of a hypothesis implies eventual research and testing. Which I don’t think is going to happen here. What you do have is an assumption, but it’s just an assumption.
is that we can make some pretty strong guesses on the demographic makeup of lemmy.
I would (conditionally) disagree.
I would suspect the makeup is predominantly center left people in the united states who likely work in tech of some fashion, aged 24 to 35,
I would say that it’s Gen Z and Millennials (broadly speaking the age group you’re talking about). That’s purely based on the fact that those groups are the most online of any age group, so odds are good that Lemmy follows established trends as much as any other social media service. I don’t have any information to speculate on occupation or other demographic statistics, though.
I obviously have no solid evidence of this, I’m just going off the activity levels of the various instances. The OP in this question was whether lemmy was actively hostile to conservative viewpoints, and my response to that was and still is there isn’t going to be much of a conservative slant for lemmy yet because they have no reason to be here yet they have other social media that is infinitely more active than any lemmy instance.
I would say a good reason is also that most Lemmy instances are openly hostile to conservative viewpoints, by design. Like, they advertise a set of core principles and expected conduct that are typically antithetical to the kinds of things you stereotypically find in conservative spaces. That’s regardless of age. Beehaw is a good example of this. It’s a heavily moderated website with a fairly stringent code of conduct that explicitly says it operates in such a way as to totally prohibit any and all hate speech. Your typical reactionary can figure out that they aren’t welcome here unless they’re participating in such a way that betrays nothing of their ideology.
I’m not sure if you missed the context I was going for, or are purpoefully misconstruding it?
My main point was that you were presenting your case poorly based on the information you were providing, not that you were wrong. There is statistical data to support that most social media is accessed largely via mobile devices. You chose a hilariously poor statistic to support that argument, though. My case didn’t go farther than that.
the vast majority of the internet is browsed through mobile devices, reddit was an outlier. Twitter, snapchat, tiktok, instagram, facebook, all of them are browsed in the majority on mobile. The demographics skew even more towards mobile when you go world wide and not just the U.S. Mobile devices completely dominate the internet worldwide.
Your main point seems to be that old people only know how to access social media via the apps on their phones. This may be true. It might not. You don’t really have any evidence to support that statement, though. You have the argument that most social media use is done via the phone. But as we know from actual statistical data (like the results discussed here: https://www.insiderintelligence.com/content/5-charts-that-show-how-and-why-you-should-reach-millennials-online), most social media is accessed by Gen Z and Millennials. Older Americans use social media far less than their younger counterparts. It’s just as plausible they access their social media via the medium they knew when they started using it: the PC.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !politics@beehaw.org
In-depth political discussion from around the world; if it’s a political happening, you can post it here.
Guidelines for submissions:
Where possible, post the original source of information.
If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
Social media should be a source of last resort.
These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.
Primates can use smartphones. We’ve made the format so user friendly we have other species which can meaningfully interact with it. You don’t really “learn” how to use a smartphone, the designs are just that good now. Apple holds 57% of the cell phone mobile market, and their UI is nearly perfect for usability.
There is like 70 thousand accounts across all of the lemmy instances, I’m sure people have multiple at this point to deal with limited federation. We have no metrics because this is all brand new and no one is collecting metrics, heck we don’t know if anyone will even collect metrics, the whole thing could become a dead mall before someone gets around to it. My hypothesis, which is by definition just a hunch, is that we can make some pretty strong guesses on the demographic makeup of lemmy. I would suspect the makeup is predominantly center left people in the united states who likely work in tech of some fashion, aged 24 to 35, and the younger demographics are going to skew left/far left (lemmygrad) and LGBT (Blahaj/196). I obviously have no solid evidence of this, I’m just going off the activity levels of the various instances. The OP in this question was whether lemmy was actively hostile to conservative viewpoints, and my response to that was and still is there isn’t going to be much of a conservative slant for lemmy yet because they have no reason to be here yet they have other social media that is infinitely more active than any lemmy instance.
I’m not sure if you missed the context I was going for, or are purpoefully misconstruding it? Reddit was a tiny website in the overall scheme of internet traffic wasn’t it (this is actually a question, I’m pretty sure it was very small overall), the vast majority of the internet is browsed through mobile devices, reddit was an outlier. Twitter, snapchat, tiktok, instagram, facebook, all of them are browsed in the majority on mobile. The demographics skew even more towards mobile when you go world wide and not just the U.S. Mobile devices completely dominate the internet worldwide.
Yes, because none of those conservative groups are a monolith, they’re a much of a “big tent” as the left is in a lot of ways. Hardcore fascists aren’t browsing tiktok, they’re in smaller cells that converse in IRCs and other very hard to find niche groups. Run of the mill conservatives are mostly on things like voat, facebook, truthsocial, the_donald, basic run of the mill shit. There’s a big difference between your average conservative genx father and someone who would be right at home on stormfront. Just like there’s a big difference between your average live/laugh/love suburban mom who has a left slant and wants people to be happy, and a hardcore leftist that would gleefully put a billionaires head under a guillotine. There’s nuance and niche group within niche groups within niche groups.
Also, remember dude we’re on a very small instance, this isn’t reddit, we’re likely going to get to know each other relatively well if we frequent the same instances and conversations, this isn’t reddit where we’re going to get lost in a sea of accounts. Things are small enough that we’ll probably recognize each other on other instances. Just like back in the day when forums and image boards were gaining big traction. Lemmy is where Reddit was 12 years ago, and where 4chan was 20 years ago.
Humans are primates, my guy. Of course we can use smartphones. We invented them.
This is an insanely specious argument based in, seemingly, nothing. Like, I’m sorry but this is pure opinion. If you have citations for this, please share, otherwise I’m going to ignore it as entirely pointless and irrelevant to our discussion.
Probably a good reason not to making sweeping claims about composition of the ecosystem, then, huh?
Well, a hypothesis is an assumption. The underlying definition of a hypothesis implies eventual research and testing. Which I don’t think is going to happen here. What you do have is an assumption, but it’s just an assumption.
I would (conditionally) disagree.
I would say that it’s Gen Z and Millennials (broadly speaking the age group you’re talking about). That’s purely based on the fact that those groups are the most online of any age group, so odds are good that Lemmy follows established trends as much as any other social media service. I don’t have any information to speculate on occupation or other demographic statistics, though.
I would say a good reason is also that most Lemmy instances are openly hostile to conservative viewpoints, by design. Like, they advertise a set of core principles and expected conduct that are typically antithetical to the kinds of things you stereotypically find in conservative spaces. That’s regardless of age. Beehaw is a good example of this. It’s a heavily moderated website with a fairly stringent code of conduct that explicitly says it operates in such a way as to totally prohibit any and all hate speech. Your typical reactionary can figure out that they aren’t welcome here unless they’re participating in such a way that betrays nothing of their ideology.
My main point was that you were presenting your case poorly based on the information you were providing, not that you were wrong. There is statistical data to support that most social media is accessed largely via mobile devices. You chose a hilariously poor statistic to support that argument, though. My case didn’t go farther than that.
Your main point seems to be that old people only know how to access social media via the apps on their phones. This may be true. It might not. You don’t really have any evidence to support that statement, though. You have the argument that most social media use is done via the phone. But as we know from actual statistical data (like the results discussed here: https://www.insiderintelligence.com/content/5-charts-that-show-how-and-why-you-should-reach-millennials-online), most social media is accessed by Gen Z and Millennials. Older Americans use social media far less than their younger counterparts. It’s just as plausible they access their social media via the medium they knew when they started using it: the PC.