• Bronzebeard@lemmy.zipEnglish
      7·
      10 days ago

      I, too will be approaching 50 in a couple years…

      And a couple years after that.

      And a few more years after that.

      And maybe several more afterwards, as well.

  • jjmoldy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    323·
    11 days ago

    Feels like the average age is 15 whenever the discussion topic is political.

  • Jo Miran@lemmy.mlEnglish
    29·
    11 days ago

    We remember what the Internet used to be and naturally gravitate towards that.

    • Brocon@lemmy.worldEnglish
      17·
      11 days ago

      I miss the old internet. I feel we lost so much along the way. It was wild, but it didn’t feel like everything just existed just to sell you something. Or sell your data.

  • ssillyssadass@lemmy.worldEnglish
    20·
    11 days ago

    Let’s be honest, Lemmy may not be the most difficult site on the internet, but the fact that it requires more thought than “sign up” is gonna drive away a lot of casual users of social media. Like the young ones.

    • jaybone@lemmy.zipEnglish
      8·
      10 days ago

      What is the sign up process like now on something like X or TikTok, phone verification via text message? I might think selfie, but they probably assume you will post those anyway so they don’t even need to ask.

    • Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      3·
      10 days ago

      I know for some folks it’s a barrier, but this always sounds weird to someone whose registration experience was “haha, funni name” ➡️ types in two fields and presses one button ➡️ fediverse citizen.

      Edit: it is somewhat more complicated these days, in that there are now three fields and a captcha.

  • Almonds@mander.xyzEnglish
    15·
    10 days ago

    The few times I’ve seen a teenager mention their age, they end up with a pack of down voters following them around. I don’t know if it’s the fact that they are teens or that they tend to post the type of cringe that comes with being young, but it’s happened enough times for my inattentive ass to notice

  • 257m@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    111·
    9 days ago

    Yeah its weird to think everybody is old here. I am 17 and yall are about as mature as me.

    • Nangijala@feddit.dkEnglish
      11·
      9 days ago

      One of the more disappointing things about growing up was when I realized that “adult” is an illusion and that all the adults I had looked up to as a kid, were pretty much just big babies doing their best in life while often not really knowing what the fuck they were doing. Cobble that with unresolved issues from childhood that has manifested in stunted growth in different areas and there you go.

      We are all kids. The only thing that changes except out bodies, is that we gradually learn to deal with the challenges life throws at us so what is insane at 20 is not so insane at 30 and what is difficult at 30 is not that hard at 40 etc etc.

      In some ways, it is a relief to know that there is no end stage. You are a kid for life and you learn for life.

      • Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        9 days ago

        Some other things do change. The brain continues to mature into our 20s, and a lot of people 25+ can start to tell the mental difference between themselves and somebody in their late teens. I personally noticed that I had stronger impulse control after about 25. As well, some of the things that bothered me when younger don’t bother me at all now.

        Another change is, as you get older you may start to seek stability over excitement. For some people, they also become more rigid in their thoughts and beliefs, unable to keep up with new ideas, and the idea of changing becomes scary.

        If I could give advice to young folk, I’d say to actively keep your mind open no matter what age you are. Actively seek to learn new concepts and skills throughout your life. Personally, I like to set at least one big goal to learn every year. Last year, I learned to label every country on a map. The year before that, I learned to solve a Rubix cube. One year I taught myself to read the katakana and hiragana scripts.

        Pick something you’ve always wanted to learn, and keep going at it til you get there. Not only will it help keep your mind flexible, but you’ll get to grow in ways that make you into a more interesting person than you were before.

        • grrgyle@slrpnk.netEnglish
          3·
          9 days ago

          Great advice for all ages.

          Actually one thing I remember most from being young is older folks (30s to 60s) always giving me all kinds advice, and it did seem smart but also so not, like, meeting me where I was at, at that age (teens, twenties).

          It’s not until like my mid-thirties that I started to rediscover some of the advice I’d heard, and see it bear fruit.

          Anyway, that’s all to say that even if it seems like some kid is ignoring your sage advice, they might just have it on the back-burner until they’re ready.

      • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        9 days ago

        I don’t think there’s anything wrong with laughing at the same things you thought were funny at age 10, but at the same time the way we process serious ideas should have more depth and reflect more life experience. More “let me think about that” and less “No U!!!”

        • Nangijala@feddit.dkEnglish
          3·
          9 days ago

          It should have more depth, but that isn’t always the case, haha. We all do it to some extent. There some topics I flat out refuse to discuss with 99% of people because most people can’t discuss these things without opting to black and white thinking. Then there are topics I refuse to discuss with people because I fall into black and white thinking and I don’t want to put that out into the world. We should definitely hold ourselves to a higher standard, but most of us are emotional beings about something and whatever that something is, will result in very silly behavior if we get in our feelings too much. The number of instances and users I have decided to block for this very reason is probably higher than on any other platform I have ever been on. Sometimes it’s because I find them to be the childish ones and other times it’s because I feel like I would become the childish one if I engage further.

          • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            9 days ago

            Lots of good pithy reflections there! Black and white thinking is my absolute top gripe about social media as well, and the reason most discussions just aren’t worth participating in. Every issue is filtered into a simplistic comic book or meme frame where there are exactly two diametrically opposed sides, with cackling villains vs noble heroes or underdog victims. Stepping out of the frame to acknowledge real-world subtleties makes you an evil apologist.

            I think a disproportionate amount of content comes from people who find social media so much more comfortable than communicating in person, they use it like lab rats wired up to an orgasm button. They’re always partly engaging with the subject at hand and partly working out their own issues. Sifting through it all to stay on point (or even find one) can be a challenge.

            • grrgyle@slrpnk.netEnglish
              2·
              8 days ago

              Black and white thinking is my absolute top gripe about social media as well, and the reason most discussions just aren’t worth participating in.

              Mm, yeah. This is especially true when communicating between different ideologies, but even within them it can be hard to have a nuanced conversation—like the kind where you might not understand or agree with some point that many in your group don’t appear to question.

              Like when the TERF thing first started becoming a big deal, I was lucky to have actually feminist friends, trans and otherwise, to walk me through it and suggest some reading. (Not to go all into it, but at the time I was having trouble discriminating which feminist women I should listen to.)

              Anyway, that’s one of those non black and white convos, which are so hard to have with anyone but actual friends, face-to-face.

        • grrgyle@slrpnk.netEnglish
          2·
          8 days ago

          Can confirm that I went to see Spaceballs in theatre last month fully expecting to cringe my way through, but in fact ended up laughing my ass off all the way.

    • Gustephan@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      9 days ago

      A lot of people basically peak in highschool and dont mature much past then. Pretty jarring for people just approaching their 20s who are used to a pretty regular maturity curve in themselves and their peers from ages 0 to 18

    • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      9 days ago

      Good way to put it. TBH I get the feeling middle schoolers post a hell of a lot more often than older people here.

  • jaybone@lemmy.zipEnglish
    10·
    10 days ago

    The first sign of Reddit going to shit was around 2015 when a bunch of tweens (and then their soccer mom moms) started posting.

    The soccer mom moms were first checking to make sure it was a safe site, since Anderson Cooper had recently at the time said it was a site for pedophiles. Then they liked the site more than the kids and started to become mods. And these communities were way bigger than their Facebook groups, and the mods had way more powerful buttons than on their Facebook group. And then sub banning became the preferred method of disagreement rather than downvoting (which was also originally not supposed to be used to express disagreement.) anyway I digress.

    • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      71·
      10 days ago

      The soccer mom moms were first checking to make sure it was a safe site, since Anderson Cooper had recently at the time said it was a site for pedophiles.

      I mean, it literally was at one point, considering that r/jailbait was massive.

      • jaybone@lemmy.zipEnglish
        7·
        10 days ago

        There were a ton of creepy subs. At least from what I heard. I didn’t subscribe to those. But the good subs were good. So I felt that blanket statement from AC was kind of a dick move. Especially for someone who considers himself a responsible journalist. Lost a lot of respect for him over that.

        • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          24·
          10 days ago

          Man, if 9 good subreddits sit down at a table with 1 pedophile subreddit…

          • jaybone@lemmy.zipEnglish
            11·
            10 days ago

            You can build 100 bridges and do they call you the bridge builder? No. But you fuck one sheep…

          • lime!@feddit.nuEnglish
            3·
            10 days ago

            on the one hand yeah, but on the other i had no idea about any of that when i joined in 2010, which i assume was more common. i mostly kept to small, closed communities and never saw the stuff on the front page unless i got logged out. and that was alwaysa weird experience, like the youtube trending page.