The mastodon and lemmy content I’m seeing feels like 90% of it comes from people who are:
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~30 years old or older
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tech enthusiasts/workers
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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?
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).
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).
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.
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.
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?”
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.
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.
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 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.
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
