First of all, I don’t mean this post as a complaint, maybe more of a warning?

There is teenagers on the fediverse. Most of them don’t share their age, for hopefully obvious reasons. I’d say that a lot of the accounts which do a lot of posting/commenting are run by teenagers — because most adults probably wouldn’t have the time for that much posting.

While the young people of this generation are generally useless when it comes to something more complicated than microsoft word, the people who are good at technology, usually are very good at it.

most of my friends (most of which don’t know the difference between a laptop and a desktop) could understand the fediverse as a concept perfectly when I explained it to them irl.

So, if you’re in a really stupid argument with someone, try to remember that there is a small chance they are 14.

    • throwaway@lemmy.cafeOPEnglish
      247·
      9 days ago

      Pretty much yeah, most people assume that no one under 30 is on fedi because its “hard” to use.

      • Lucy :3@feddit.orgEnglish
        27·
        9 days ago

        I’m 19 and assumed that there are at least a few. And with that I’m correct.

      • ByteMe@lemmy.worldEnglish
        20·
        9 days ago

        I’m 24 and I’m using it just fine. I’d say that after signing up somewhere and getting an app to login into, the rest is pretty simple and much similar to reddit

      • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        16·
        9 days ago

        What part of the fediverse is “hard” to use?

        Lemmy is easier to use than the UBB forum I started to become active on at the age of 10 that was the entry point for me being on the Internet at all. Back then we didn’t have Markdown, but BBCode, and I had that figured out after a few weeks.

        I think you’re way underestimating young people.

        • Today@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5·
          9 days ago

          I’m old. I’m not sure what part of lemmy is hard. It’s just sign up, click a few things, download an app if you want. I don’t even have to remember a password. You don’t have to know how to build a car in order to drive.

          Yes, noticed the influx of youngsters recently in the daily posts of ‘how come my boyfriend won’t talk to me’, ‘why are the girls at school so jealous of me’, etc. Also, putting 19/f in the post. What’s that about?

          • cabinet_sanchez@midwest.socialEnglish
            3·
            9 days ago

            I’m also old and I really don’t know what’s going on. You’re mostly right, I’m here reading stuff and it’s working fine for me, but when it comes to federated instances and mastodons, I’m not sure I’ll ever really understand what this IS

        • Palladiumasteroid@piefed.socialEnglish
          2·
          8 days ago

          Truly hard to use I’d say are hubzilla and its forks. The rest of the Fediverse doesn’t require much knowledge and aren’t as hard as their userbases pretend they are (they aren’t even hard at all)

        • JayGray91@fedia.io
          21·
          8 days ago

          I started to think it’s because of the result from years of a lot of people being trained and marinated by big tech in siloed opaque social media and website sign ups, where everything is it’s own thing with almost no interconnectedness and communication between each other. So it seems hard when they (me too admittedly) see all this instance thing and federated that.

          Also IMO fediverse has a too nerdy and being infodumped on image to me. That image, at least on the threadiverse side, seems to be toned down and normie-d with recent “campaigns” on reddit though.

          You guys really do need to not be too nerdy lol.

        • throwaway@lemmy.cafeOPEnglish
          32·
          9 days ago

          I am a young person. It made sense once i explained it to them, but they had no idea how to do anything without my help, at first.

      • Nougat@fedia.io
        8·
        9 days ago

        The assumptions that people make about age boggle my mind. You know that the people who made the internet are all “old” now, right?

        • throwaway@lemmy.cafeOPEnglish
          22·
          9 days ago

          Yeah, though most people severely underestimate, or overestimate the internets age.

      • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
        79·
        9 days ago

        Fedi does screw heavy middle aged and male and US but any one who can handle Linux can figure our how to operate here haha

        Yeah kids might be retarded tech wise now but there is always the nerds who excel at tech so they would naturally end up here

  • Condiment2085@lemm.eeEnglish
    39·
    9 days ago

    This is actually a good thing - teenagers are known to bring niche things into popular culture! For some reason the whole of society kind of cares what they think is cool

    • Dil@is.hardlywork.ingEnglish
      61·
      8 days ago

      Most free time, rich teens spending their parents money drive our trends probably , not even probably thats most influencers, like alix earle , its funny af that all the girls ik that repost eat the rich and shit follow her and taylor swift

    • Kusimulkku@lemm.eeEnglish
      3·
      8 days ago

      It’s just so tiring to discuss something like politics with someone who is literally 12.

      • Lemminary@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        8 days ago

        I agree. Discussing politics should require some form of age verification! Reading the myopic takes are enough torture on their own, let alone having to contend with them.

        (Yes, this is hyperbole. If y’all come for me I’ll laugh really hard at you.)

  • RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    30·
    9 days ago

    Honestly as an older person it very much feels like a lot of Lemmy is under 25. It’s the little things like not understanding the historical context that something from the past fits in while simultaneously telling me Im wrong about the time that I lived through.

    • TORFdot0@lemmy.worldEnglish
      24·
      9 days ago

      You are either a 14 year old socialist furry or a 35 year old Linux user on the fedi. No in between

    • shikitohno@lemm.eeEnglish
      72·
      8 days ago

      It’s the little things like not understanding the historical context that something from the past fits in while simultaneously telling me Im wrong about the time that I lived through.

      In fairness, that’s not necessarily a sign of them being young, but could be any number of things at play. I’ve had my grandmother literally tell me not to tell hew how things were during World War II, because she lived through it, when we were talking about well documented actions of major historical figures that she was confidently incorrect about. No amount of documentation about what Churchill, Stalin or Hitler did during a particular event could change her mind, because she lived through it, never mind the fact that she was like 10 at the time. /r/AskHistorians had a 20 year moratorium on discussing recent events for a reason. Then again, this is the same lady who left her church of decades, because she was sure she was better at interpreting the Bible and church doctrine than all the priests who spent years studying those topics in seminary, since she occasionally read random books of the Bible and was older than they were.

      It could also just be peoples’ biases at play. A Marxist historian and a fundamentalist, conservative Christian historian will come to wildly different conclusions and interpretations of things like the significance and impact of the rise of the religious right in the US under figures like Ronald Reagan, despite looking at the very same events.

      And it could always just be that people are essentially engaging in drive-by posting quite often on the internet. For all the good things it can bring us, and the sense of community that it often provides, I think that internet “communities” really just provide us with a close approximation of community, while fundamentally lacking key elements that help real communities to exist and function in the long term. Personally, I’m closer to the Democratic moderates/centrists that abound on Lemmy.world than I am to my coworkers or my parents politically, yet I find that political discussions here tend to lose all civility and sincerity much quicker than they do with my boss who is all gung-ho for MAGA in real life. Like, I actually got my boss to come around on things like taxing the rich and universal healthcare when I had a chance to explain them without the hysterical stuff Fox tosses out and with examples of how they would actually benefit him to have as a baseline during election season last year, and it was a more civil and less heated conversation than some of those I had here a few months prior about whether Harris was really a good pick when the Democrats announced her as their candidate last year.

      • CarbonBasedNPU@lemm.eeEnglish
        21·
        8 days ago

        I think a lot of the loss of civility comes from the fact that lemmy is just so left leaning. I don’t feel the need hear to defend the dems because I know that 90% of the users here understand that the dems are in fact at least marginally better than the other choice. IRL I run dem apologia on occasion because I might not like what they are doing but at least they pretend to care.

    • Saleh@feddit.orgEnglish
      4·
      8 days ago

      Assuming someone to develop a sufficient consciousness of their time starting with age 10 that would mean anything before 2010.

      In all practical matter, people who are 25 now, cannot have any practical recollection of the US invasion of Iraq and are only having broad ideas of the 2007 financial crisis.

      That is indeed scary.

    • cm0002@lemmy.worldEnglish
      68·
      9 days ago

      To any teens who come across this post, do NOT admit you’re underage or were underage at time of account creation anywhere, anytime for any reason

      It’s like Rule 1 of the internet.

      Sincerely, The kids who grew alongside the internet since the 90s

    • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgEnglish
      191·
      9 days ago

      And what’s the problem with that?

      Laws don’t currently make a concession for federated social media. If the law in an instance’s jurisdiction says that users on a platform must be of a certain age, then for practical/enforcement purposes it makes no difference if they’re local or federated.

      FWIW, I also ban people under age 18 on my instance (local and federated). Obviously I can’t know everyone’s age, but if someone offers it and I become aware, and it’s below the minimum age set in our policy, then they’re banned until they’re of age - simple as that.

      I’m in the US, so 13 is the minimum age by law for most services (COPPA), and there’s various grumblings to increase the age specifically for social media, so I’m playing it safe with 18 which is the age you’re legally considered an adult.

      Considering some of the stuff that gets posted here (legitimately and via bad actors), then my legal liabilities are less as I’m going out of my way to only serve adults on the platform. Mind you, I’m running this as a hobby / volunteer and do not have a team of lawyers on hand.

            • throwaway@lemmy.cafeOPEnglish
              21·
              9 days ago

              From a bit of clicking around, its linked no-where but the footer, so if you’re making an account they don’t tell you to read it. Easy to miss.

            • barsoap@lemm.eeEnglish
              11·
              9 days ago

              Quoth Article 8:

              1. Where point (a) of Article 6(1) applies, in relation to the offer of information society services directly to a child, the processing of the personal data of a child shall be lawful where the child is at least 16 years old.
                Where the child is below the age of 16 years, such processing shall be lawful only if and to the extent that consent is given or authorised by the holder of parental responsibility over the child.
                Member States may provide by law for a lower age for those purposes provided that such lower age is not below 13 years.
              2. The controller shall make reasonable efforts to verify in such cases that consent is given or authorised by the holder of parental responsibility over the child, taking into consideration available technology.
              3. Paragraph 1 shall not affect the general contract law of Member States such as the rules on the validity, formation or effect of a contract in relation to a child.

              The referenced point (a) is in the conditions for data processing to be lawful:

              the data subject has given consent to the processing of his or her personal data for one or more specific purposes;

              In essence: The age of consent is 16 when it comes to your personal data. A completely different question is whether lemm.ee even processes personal data, even more so in a matter that requires consent. Because unless you doxx yourself lemm.ee knows nothing more about you than your IP and, presuming best practices, only keeps limited logs around for strictly technical purposes which don’t need consent. That point (a) is only one condition under which personal data can be processed, there’s also b, c, d, e, and f.

              …not that I’m saying that the legal notice is bad it’s good. It’s overzealous and overcautious going beyond the letter of the law and event intent, reaching into the fabled realms of actually giving a fuck. Like, if the law says “assault is bad” then this notice is saying “please all cuddle, ok?”

      • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
        34·
        9 days ago

        Nobody should pretend and nobody should have to li

        Also, nobody should volunteer age info for no reason… Esp under age crowd. Fucking pedos everywhere

    • throwaway@lemmy.cafeOPEnglish
      62·
      9 days ago

      Thats why I made this post. If a teenager is on the fediverse, they will know how to evade a ban.

  • weremacaque@lemmy.worldEnglish
    271·
    8 days ago

    Most of us would post on forums as teens back in the day, so it’s hypocritical to try to keep them from doing it too. The only places we should run them off would be communities we specifically make for adults. They don’t necessarily have to be NSFW. Sometimes it’s just nice to have a community where everyone is old enough that they get the same references and are in similar stages in life.

    General music and hobby related communities really shouldn’t be blocked off, though.

    • nodiratime@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      8 days ago

      A friend and I just yesterday talked about that and how we both visited some random sites/communities back then. How we had ICQ Chats with adults as 13-somethings, phone calls, about the blogosphere, how some Internet friends asked whether you needed something and send it on a disc via Mail.

      I suppose if I were a teenager again, I would be here too.

    • ToxicWaste@lemm.eeEnglish
      41·
      8 days ago

      we would not stop from accessing adult stuff, if we wanted to. so trying to hard prevent them now would be hypocritical too imo. it is our job as parents to prepare them as good as we can.

    • throwaway@lemmy.cafeOPEnglish
      32·
      8 days ago

      I mean, as a teenager, if a community says in the rules that its for adults only, I’d avoid it.

  • LostXOR@fedia.io
    241·
    9 days ago

    As a teenager who is relatively tech-savvy and on the fediverse, can confirm. I think it’s gotten to the point where even less technically inclined people can join fairly easily, but the more savvy are usually the first to flee from enshittifying platforms so we see a lot more of them here.

    • throwaway@lemmy.cafeOPEnglish
      273·
      9 days ago

      They are, teenagers (saying this as a teenager) are hopeless. Tech became so easy to use that anything requiring a tiny bit of effort is impossible for these people.

      • Sanctus@lemmy.worldEnglish
        141·
        9 days ago

        Its the same as its always been. There was always a small subset of the population interested and developing computer sciences. There was never this time where all the youngins knew computers like they did breathing. That was a fallacy.

      • Dil@is.hardlywork.ingEnglish
        21·
        8 days ago

        You’re admitting that after teens just got banned? Guess thats why its a throwaway lol

    • TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org
      91·
      9 days ago

      At 14, me and most of my peers could navigate a file system on DOS, format floppies, install games from setup disks, and edit autoexec.bat files.

      Yes, there is a huge difference between the teens of today and the teens of 25 years ago. Technological illiteracy is real thanks to the iPhone era and UIs becoming stupid simple to use.

      The “iPad kids” meme didn’t originate from thin air.

      • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.worldEnglish
        71·
        9 days ago

        Congrats, you lived in a social bubble. As we all do. Your sounds fun, so cherish the memories and don’t pretend your experience is universal.

      • TORFdot0@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        9 days ago

        There’s kids today that still do that. And plenty of kids that’s call you a virgin and stuff you in a locker for being able to use a computer without a gui

      • SupraMario@lemmy.worldEnglish
        31·
        9 days ago

        I blame gen x and millennials…we made shit easy from the hard shit we built/had…and once everything was a button press the new generations went all Idiocracy.

    • TheFogan@programming.devEnglish
      2·
      9 days ago

      Huge variations. I’d say probably the technologically literate percentages of people is about the same… but tech has allowed the technologically illiterate the ability to use the internet.

  • WatDabney@fedia.io
    15·
    9 days ago

    I’ve long assumed that many (most?) of the tankies, and of hexbear’s userbase in general, are teens.

  • Delphia@lemmy.worldEnglish
    141·
    8 days ago

    Listen teens, I’m 40. I was a niteclub bouncer in a town popular with backpackers and partying, I also did a lot of traveling and partying. I was shameless, its a miracle it didnt fall off.

    When you say you fucked my mom, its childish and stupid. When I say I fucked your mom while its not likely its possible… and thats worse.

  • Kane@femboys.bizEnglish
    121·
    8 days ago

    Maybe, but I was on the internet as a teen and that went fine, being careful is a general thing in life.

    But more importantly: adults have a phone and use it during work ALL the time. So I’m not so sure about the average age of the people commenting on here.

  • Nougat@fedia.io
    9·
    9 days ago

    I’d say that a lot of the accounts which do a lot of posting/commenting are run by teenagers — because most adults probably wouldn’t have the time for that much posting.

    Challenge accepted.

  • FundMECFS@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    91·
    8 days ago

    But don’t assume everyone who is very active is a teenagers.

    Some of us aren’t ;).

    And you don’t have to understand federation to use lemmy. I’ve brought a couple of gen-z ers here. Get them to download voyager. Voyger automatically suggests lemm.ee for account creation. And then you just use it like reddit. Super simple.