Agree. But it's not kids, it's stupid people of all ages. Same thing happened with Reddit and with the Internet as a whole. Used to be you had to be a little smart to know you wanted to be on the Internet and figure out how to get it working. Then same was true of forums and IRC. Then same was true of Reddit. But then Reddit changed formats trying to be a TikTok style quick content scroll app, so idiots who just want to scroll started using the site and quality of discussions went down. I hope Lemmy grows but I hope the sign up process stays as it is, to weed out the extra stupid.

Not just fewer kids. But fewer conservatives too.

Gosh, I love it here.

I’m a teenage FOSS enthusiast and I’m of the opinion that there are a lot more of us here than you seem to all think.

how do you do, fellow adults?

Lemmy is so good right now because there's no commercialization here.

please don't randomly start some ageism crap suddenly now please. the vibes are good because we collectively experience self-efficacy against the corporate super power that is reddit. All people should feel welcome on lemmy

I disagree. Terrible take. It's never wise to discount, alienate, or exclude our youth. Growth is the name of the game and they're the ones who are going to be ushering in hopefully a better future. Who will they learn from if not us? You want them stewing with each other?

No. We maintain whatever nebulous internet "culture" we like and establish rules. Anyone, young or old, who doesn't adhere can suck eggs. That way young people learn how to act and we can hear them tell us about all the ways we need to better society.

Truly I believe that the children who develop during this time of overstimulation and rapid technological advancement will emerge maybe a bit... maladapted but better than us. Humans can be so resilient especially under supportive circumstances. Our intelligence is adaptive. So if you want to make a great internet community, maintain your respect for our kids.

For me, It's the lack of advertising. Especially the constant guerilla advertising and flash marketing done in the larger subs.

For me it is lack of commercial interests (ads hidden in post), lack of bots, and lack of "funny meme and jokes' posts.

I think it's more just because we're early adopters and the first wave of refugees.

We're building something here - and right now, for some it's a new home, for some of us this is something big - a place that resists monetization. This isn't just the fresh new version of social media, built by cool people who have the best intentions and a vision (I think most of them did, at least initially)

Admins go bad, already some of the instances I'm on have people starting to look at not just paying for servers, but making a profit. And if they can live off the donations - fine, more power to them.

But when someone comes knocking with a bag of money, what are they going to do? They can sell us out, but they can't go far before we leave... What do we miss out on? The content will either follow or we're missing out on content elsewhere.

And we can mitigate it further - too many talented people care too much to let this idea die. We're going to face difficult times, but it's a new ephemeral Internet built on top of the one stolen from us - it doesn't start or end with a reddit clone.

And I think that's why we care - because this time is different. It can't go bad the way everything else does. It relies on no one, and it's built from all of us

This place is ours. No kings, no masters, no capitol, no capital

Do kids really impact the level of conversations on social platforms? Many adults are just as immature.

Yeah, sometimes on reddit I'd be talking to someone and realize oh... this person is probably 14 or something.

I think the influence on Reddit was deeper than a lot of people have considered. The hivemind was so strong it made it difficult to have decent and useful discussion, even the puns that muddied down nearly every post's comments achieved that end. The amount of posts I've seen of people feeling much more comfortable actually interacting on Lemmy, in my mind, lends weight to how Reddit wasn't a place for objective dialogue. That's why it felt so adolescent, like sitting at a high school lunch table.

This is like when people in 7th grade say that the 6th graders are sooo immature omg

I don't support age shaming. Let's not be those people.

This is the time before the Eternal September. Enjoy it while you can.

The internet as a whole got sadder / meaner / more unruly when COVID happened. I was on reddit a lot at the time and noticed it immediately.

It’s still like that, but I hope we find a way forward.

If you want, we can all pretend to be kids just like on /r/teenagers.

That place was so creepy.

OP I think you spelled idiots wrong.

Meh, lets not.

In my experience, older people have to make conscious effort to maintain critical thinking and reasoning and not start lazily regurgitating settled, memorized opinions they've come rely on as absolutes, intead of allowing those beliefs to be subject to fresh challenges from novel perspectives that may change those opinions. Many do make that effort, and many do not. To paraphrase my favorite fictional character, if you refuse to change your mind, then you will die stupid.

Individuals are individuals of course though. I'm of the opinion that, on an individual basis, beyond the age of around 12, age is an extremely poor metric to estimate someone's intellect, wisdom, and insight. I'm in my mid 30s and have a master's degree in psychology with a 3.9 GPA. I recognize that there are 18 year olds that dwarf me intellectually, and more commonly 80 year olds who've lived lives devoid of reflection, who will die defending their long dead pappy's narrative about how the world works with anger rather than reason, solely because that's what they were told to believe. I have pity for that type, but very little patience.

When I was a kid I thought grown ups were annoying, when I was in my 20s I thought teenagers were annoying, in my 30s I think people in their 20s are annoying. People will always have something to complain about others. “Kids” is just a different group for different people.

I would imagine a high proportion of people so easy to leave Reddit found it easy because they remember leaving digg.

Anyone younger than that are just bloody sensible

Joke's on you, I'm a dog.

The amount of generational hate and is really ridiculous… I don't consider myself a kid with 21, but seriously, I'm happy if younger people join here and also embrace this space. And just acting as if everyone of a specific age would be the same is… oof

Enjoy while it lasts, Eventually everything turns to shit

hot take but nobody under 18 should be allowed on any form of social media or internet forum

but there's no way to enforce that. better solution is to just get rid of all social media

I remember shortly after the death of digg rage comics being peak humor and suddenly an influx of kids not understanding how to make a rage comic killing that sub.

It reminds me of the day the internet died, when so many new AOL users overwhelmed the forums at the time and killed all the etiquette that had formed up to that point. Internet been stagnant for longer than it should have been. I’m excited to see where things go now.

Lots of kids, but the mental age of the user base is all adults (for now)

I suspect that one of the reasons Lemmy's texts are longer, meatier, and more thoughtful is the age of the users. My gut tells me that we're an older audience that doesn't need to dump the usual social media BS - hasty comments filled with unsubstantiated arguments. Everyone has an opinion and should be heard and respected. As a Reddit refugee, I feel Lemmy provides such space, and that's what I enjoy most. Like many others whose profiles match mine, once you get past the initial confusion (where should I register, what app should I use, where can I comment) and get comfortable with the jargon, you feel more encouraged to participate in discussions. So far, I've been pleased with the civil environment of the discussions, as most users are able to express their thoughts in a relaxed and non-toxic manner. Honestly, I'd encourage anyone who has been just lurking to participate and share their thoughts.

Maturity really isn't the same as age: plenty of legally adult people (many already so for decades) around who are anything but mature individuals.

That said, as others here I think the absence of the subtle pressures derived from commercialization and profit-seeking make most of the difference.

Also, I've been thinking about the possibiility that both those already in Lemmy before and the Reddit refugees who came in recently, are at the most principled end of the spectrum compared with those still in Reddit (whose principles on the subject of ultra-authoritarian top-down imposition as done in Reddit clearly aren't strong enough to make them try something else), possibly also more confortable with change. This might make the crowd here at the moment a self-selected bunch leaning significantly more towards a certain psychological profile than the average which in turn (or so is my theory) affects the dominant tone of discussions here.

Let's be real, kids don't care about/understand what the API changes are and are on the TikTok

I'm emotionally 15 does that count?

No kids? I am a kid

Hiiiiiii guys! ~

I'm new heeereeeee! Am 12/f/cali looking for cutey cutey fweends!!!!! Uwu

It's so good because a lot of people have been waiting for a viable alternative to Reddit for half a decade or longer. It's non-corporate internet, the way it should be.

I haven't been here much since I joined last week, but one thing I noticed is I've barely seen any typos on Lemmy. While I definitely don't mind seeing the occasional typo, the number of spelling mistakes was getting annoying, and it's gotten progressively worse over the last year or so.