Jesse F BallengerDec 7, 2022

I'm curious if there is any sense of whether #mastodon has or is developing a generational identity?

Anecdotal or data-driven takes welcome, but as a start, indicate your #generation below and boost. Discussion of the assumptions behind this welcomed!

(I had to lump older generations in with boomers because evidently surveys are limited to four choices.) #generation #GenX #GenZ #millenials #Boomers

Gen Z (Age 10-25)
7.1%
Millenial (Age 26-41)
34.7%
Gen X (42-57)
44.5%
Boomer and older (Age 58 & up)
13.8%
Poll ended at .
Show threadRob

@jfballenger To vastly overgeneralize generational trends: Mastodon seems complicated and fiddly from a user experience perspective, so it's going to skew towards Gen X and Millennials that grew up adapting to emerging digital tech that was awkward and fiddly.

Most Boomers won't want to deal with the technical complexity of servers and federation, and Gen Z was raised on more polished digital products so they're less tolerant of having to fiddle with things.

Dec 8, 2022 at 9:34pmWeb
Show threadRobDec 8, 2022

@jfballenger This isn't intended as shade to any cohort and individual situations will vary. Just anecdotal observation of how much time people are used to wasting messing around with digital platforms that aren't smoothly designed around an optimized user interface.

If you spent your youth trying to make sense of the 1995-2005 internet, you probably just have higher tolerance for a janky experience because "dealing with jank" was a necessity then.

Show threadJesse F BallengerDec 9, 2022
@rob That's a really interesting theory. As you say, it's a vast generalization (as most claims about generational difference are), but maybe something to it.