Slashdot Mirror
Youths No Longer Predominant on MySpace
mikesd81 writes "The Associated Press is reporting on the rapid aging of MySpace. More than half of MySpace's users are now 35 or older. From the article: 'Just a year ago, teens under 18 made up about 25 percent of MySpace, the popular online hangout run by News Corp. That's now down to 12 percent in the comScore analysis released Thursday. By contrast, the 35-54 group at MySpace grew to 41 percent in August, from 32 percent a year earlier ... The study was based on comScore's regular panels for measuring Internet audiences, rather than MySpace's registration information, where users often lie about their age.'"
More predators, less victims.
So its based off of some other system where users lie about their age rather then myspace's? Wonderful! It must be accurate then!
That or the users are faking their age
"The Associated Press is reporting on the rapid aging of MySpace.
Video at 11.
Have you read my journal today?
Suddenly there are fewer genuine teenagers in an online forum? It's obvious that the ranking scheme is now able to measure the age of FBI agents and Congressfolk more accurately.
[
The new statistics point to many new candidates for the Dateline specials on child predators! MySpace is a bad, bad, bad, bad, bad place according to the local newsman! This will just lead to more fear mongering on the nightly news. Anyone who listens to O & A will completely understand where this is coming from. "Are you normal? Find out at 11!"
Thus proving:
Myspace: For 14 year old girls and the 40 year old men that love them
(don't know where i heard this , so i don't take credit)
After all the negative news about MySpace, it probably attracted every predator on the Internet to this site...
Did anyone else see that SNL sketch about teaching adults to use MySpace where the entire class except one mom was made up of pedophiles?
Who CARES?
I'm 32 and still not on MySpace...Thank God!
Also, many of my friends are starting to delete their profiles...They are starting to realize it's uselessness and dangers....
I'm pretty sure the large number of teanie boppers that register as 99 years old to avoid stalkers, creeps, and weirdos may have thrown the statistics off just a little bit. And then you have the crowd that thinks it's funny to be "69" years old. Although, the article is correct when it states that the user base is getting older. I'm surprised to find out how many older coworkers have myspace accounts now. It's definately hitting critical mass as a cultural phenomenon.
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
Certainly if it were based off of current listed ages in Myspace, the vast majority of users would be 90-100 yrs old and closely followed by 14 and 15 yr olds*.
The former are usually the actual 14 and 15 yr olds, lying about their age to not have a private profile. And the later of the above are often the older audience lying about their age to HAVE a private profile. Many of which don't realize anyone can choose to be private now (previously only underage users).
Go figure.
* this does not include Music accounts - which are by default, over 100 yrs old.
That's pretty sad. I don't pay much attention to MySpace, but I would have thought adults would be in the minority.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
My daughter actually told me that mySpace is for "old people and loosers" I guess they have all moved on to a new site that is more of the same but fits this weeks definition of cool and edgy. Nothing new here, remember being in college when it was cool to like a band until other people did...then they were sell outs regardless of whether the music changed or not.
i'd say this is complete and utter bullshit. I hope these sites like digg and mysapce die their internet deaths soon. It's almost time where the basic code for these types of sites will be freeware anyway.
I imagine this is actually a bad thing for MySpace. Having 50 million unique hits from a single demographic such as teens is a huge deal. That'd be an amazing market penetration. Spread those 50 million out over a broader age range and, while you're getting the same number of eyeballs, your advertising target audience for any particular ad has shrunk considerably. After all, if 50% of the site is over 30 then 50% of the ad views of the latest pop sensation are going to be wasted on people who won't click.
From a business perspective I'd say this is damaging news.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
... "less Myspace users are lying about their age".
So, let me see if I understand the way this thread is running:
Kid's hanging out of MySpace are just being kids, but middle aged adults are predetors and/or lying about their age? is that about right?
What is this, the modern interpretation of "never trust anyone over 30 years old"? Some us "old timers" still enjoy meeting new people from time to time.
When I initially saw the article I thought, "cool, people my age, maybe I'll set up an account". This thread has been kinda depressing.
Maybe....just maybe...the notion of networking with people across the internet is becoming a more mainstream idea. This is kind of reminiscent of an old gopher site called "occ" which I used to use for job hunting. Nowadays, it's a web site called "Monster", and one of serveral such sites. Like many others, I maintain an online resume as a matter of course.
It could be that social networking sites are evolving to the same level.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
Huh? Excuse me? Since where did 35+ become synonimous with paedophile?
It may be hard to comprehend for someone whose world revolves around a computer in a basement, but most humans are _social_ beings. Yes, I know, mind boggles. There are plenty of reasons for people, even aged 35+, to interact with other people in a real or virtual community, that _don't_ involve looking for 13 year olds to fuck. Like, you know, interacting with other 35+ people.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
in the right hands, i.e., that of adults, myspace is actually quite useful. At 26, I simply posted minimal information on my page, and I don't do the obnoxious, barf-all-over-the-screen personal page. But it is easy to keep in touch with old classmates, and friends in various parts of the country.
insert inflammatory anti-microsoft comment here
I think it would be interesting to see the correlation between those "older" users and whether they are male or female. I'm gonna take a shot in the dark and guess the majority are in fact male. Whereas "younger" users are probably much more evenly split. Maybe more older men are now just realizing the 'benefits' of myspace. Creepy to ponder.
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
By contrast, the 35-54 group at MySpace grew to 41 percent in August, from 32 percent a year earlier ... The study was based on comScore's regular panels for measuring Internet audiences, rather than MySpace's registration information, where users often lie about their age.'
That's a lot of pedophiles.
My only regret... is that I have... bonitis..
Supposedly, this company has some method of telling the age of a person based on their MySpace profile. I'm guessing it involves voodoo.
Or maybe they just assume that everyone who likes Norwegian black metal is 14 years old, everyone who likes Neil Diamond is 57, and everyone else is 39.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
via spyware of course
or as they call it researchware, just like HP board was researching its board members
If the stats are any where near correct, the kids will go somewhere else. This will be the end of myspace as adults will just follow them to the next "hip" site.
like my friend says, "myspace is for child predators and their prey."
lose != loose
I'm not sure why anyone over 35, or even over 25 for that matter would have a myspace page anymore, as nearly every employer, at least here in NYC will check your emaill adress for a myspace page. I understand that there is nothing inherently wrong with a page,there may be something on your page or a friends that an employer finds unavory. I have personally not hired someone because they mentioned using drugs on their page. Most employers are much more conservative than I am, especially the corps. Sad but true.
Et In Arcadia Ego
Same reason one of the other posters in this thread made it sound like being in Congress is synomimous with paedophile. Because the media doesn't know how to report news anymore, and so instead they re-run the same stories over and over again until a stereotype is created against certain groups of people.
My co-workers and I use MySpace to blow off steam and chat while at work (of course we work in technology, go figure). I think people like us get together in small groups, we are not interested in having 5,000 anonymous friends - it's more like we are hanging out at the water cooler, but with the guise of sitting at your computer and getting some work done.
You had me at merlot
Tom had no comment other than to say that he's your friend.
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
100110100010
I like myspace...Through it I have been in contact lost friends from hs, etc. I'm also in contact w/outta state family, etc.
First come the sheep, then come the wolves.
Defining Statistics and Social Research
In other news, a staggering number of youths are members of slashdot.org...
Beer! It's what's for breakfast!
It has to be at least 70% paedophiles by now.
God Be Gone
so, the original stats were scewed because all the 35+ year olds were pretending to be 16-year-old girls?
I guess this is good... it means there isn't actually a problem to worry about anymore.
Jeremy
Apparently, Rupert Murdoch has been sending out a lot of friend requests.
The "Over 35 Crowd" included politicians desperately trying to win votes.
This can only mean one thing: MySpace users are aging at a faster rate than the rest of us.
We should look into this. Is there something about ugly HTML that increases the human rate of aging? This really demands further study.
Read my blog.
anybody else want to beat this pedophile...err I mean dead horse?
To see that all these older perverts can now be honest about their age on myspace and still get that killer myspace tang!
"It'll destroy you if you try to make it mean anything to anyone but yourself." - Henry Rollins
I'll give you a damn good reason to be on a virtual community (e.g., you're on Slashdot right now) instead of striking a conversation with your good neighbour Jack Random: common interests. E.g., I'd rather talk or read a post about computers, history, or cats, than listen to the local drone go on and on about football (soccer) and cars.
Frankly, most conversations born out of sheer geographical proximity are fucking boring. There's a whole class of topics that really interest noone that much, like sports or the weather, that exist only as the lowest common denominator for talks between perfect strangers. ("Say, it's cloudy today." Yes, I noticed it, I'm not fucking blind.)
And people who devote a disproportionate amount of their time just to stay on top of such common denominator topics. E.g., sports. There are plenty of people whose only real interest in sports and in following the prowess of a give team, whether they consciously realize it or not, is only really to seem to belong to the local group of Tom, Dick and Harry who seem interested in that team. Bonus points if it's just groupthink, and deep down inside, Tom, Dick and Harry aren't in it for any other reason either.
Me, I'd rather find someone and some topic more interesting than that. On the Internet if that's what it takes.
I'll give you a second one: to stay in touch with old pals. People occasionally do have to move.
Plus, it's not even something new, and you only need to look at history to see how bogus that argument is. The same could be said for snail mail letters, for example. Here, lemme rephrase it for you: "Also, there are few reason for these letters. The whole point of them is to meet people you will never actually meet. Want some social interaction. Try striking up a conversation with somebody, that alwasy seesm to work well for me."
And yet, ever since someone inventing writing on a stone or clay tablet, people have used them to communicate with other people, some they'll likely never meet in person. All sorts of people, including philosophers, novelists, playwrights, statesmen, etc, yes, have often enough preferred to spend an evening writing a letter to an old friend or to someone with similar interests, instead of just going out and striking a random conversation about the weather. For the most famous ones you can even go to the local book store or library and buy a a book or three with transcripts of their correspondence. Those alone would make a nice mountain of evidence that people occasionally do want to socialize with someone more interesting than the locally available Joe and Jane Random. Go figure.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I guess I'm one of them. I put up a MySpace page a few months ago, trying to locate people for planning a 20th high school reunion. I've actually found more of my classmates at MySpace than at any other site on the 'net.
Never argue with a man carrying a water buffalo
...most of my Myspace "friends" put something ridiculous as their age, such as 99, or 76. The data is clearly flawed. There is no age verification system. Er... note that I am a minor.
-AC
There's not that many teenagers online in North America (sure, there's some from Europe and other places, but the vast majority are American and Canadian).
Didn't these losers in the 35-54 group learn their lesson back in the day with Geocities? Nobody wants to visit your poorly designed. Please at least tell me that Myspace doesn't allow the blink tag?
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
It may be hard to comprehend for someone whose world revolves around a computer in a basement, but most humans are _social_ beings
Sorry, whenever anyone mentions that humans are social beings here on slashdot, I have to pull out that Breakfast Club line. And I call it a "den," not a basement...
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Really, how many Cam Whores are on MySpace? I joined years ago so a friend could share some pictures with me. Otherwise my account pretty much just languishes there. But a week doesn't go by where some 'OMG I"M NEW' girl doesn't try to friend me, and ask me to visit her 'NEW CAM PAGE WHERE I LOVE TO HANG OUT AND CHAT', blah blah blah.
The fact that most of these Cam whores are 'bots is pretty funny, the fact that when you go check out their 'friends' list you find ten thousand guys who are all completely clueless to what's going on is hysterical. But the porn industry thrives on MySpace and I'm rather surprised that the company doesn't do anything about it.
Makes my wonder if they cut some kind of a kickback for looking the other way.
..think of the adults!!
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Whats up with all these Americans thinking all adults signing up on MySpace are pedophiles? (Genuine question).
And no, i havent been following the American news lately.
"The study was based on comScore's regular panels for measuring Internet audiences, rather than MySpace's registration information, where users often lie about their age."
This just in. People on MySpace have changed the way they lie about their age.
I am a 40 year old concerned parent. I use myspace to keep an eye on what my teenage child is doing. You would be amazed at what you can find out by looking at what their friends say. I have also used it to bust other family members for doing things they shouldn't be.
It has become obvious that the kids today are not to bright about covering their tracks. We didn't have the WWW, digital camera, etc. when I was growing up. I have no idea these kids post what they do. I am glad that none of my exploits during my youth made it to the digital age.
Judging by the site layout, I'd say the design department's average age is still about 16...
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
One word:
So?
do you invest? do you hold a stake? no? then you should have no interest in that company. Okay maybe if you want to invest. But still.
Die when you die -GG Allin
I have been waiting years to drop this link http://ddr2.pcware.com.au/Valhalla/2121_image.jpg
I'm pretty sure the large number of teanie boppers that register as 99 years old to avoid stalkers, creeps, and weirdos may have thrown the statistics off just a little bit.
Remember, girls, if you try to project a highly sexual image to the world, that only teenaged boys will look and be interested. Anybody over 20 who's attention you catch is a "stalker, creep, and weirdo".
This idea's pretty weird, yet millions of kids seem to believe it ...
Wow, way to go the attack there buddy.
I'll address the obvious flaw in you post first. It seems you are comparing Myspace to written communication. I will absolutely agree that keeping in contact with old pals is one of the 'few' valid reasons for myspace. You will notice, or perhaps not, that I never said the was 'no' reason for thee social networking site, rather there are 'few' reasons.
Personally, for the people I bother to keep in touch with I do so via other means of communication, often email, snail mail, or (gasp) the telephone. Then again my definition of a 'friend' is not somebody who will click an 'approve' button on a web page, rather it is somebody who I actually care about and make an effort to have interaction with.
As for the first part of your post, WTF? You can't find a live person who shares enough of your interest to strike up a conversation. Shit, I live in a town with a population of 10,000 and I have met numerous people at the one coffeshop and the one bar in town. Do I find them all interesting and insightful, hell no, but some of them are great. I guess you would need to go out in public to a spot that may not cater to whatever your obsession is but hey, thems the breaks.
This is totally off topic but I fear that myspace etc... has caused many people to forget how to make real world friends. I worry about this shit. As the father of a 4 year old I have made a point to teach him how to interact with people, not computers. I would much rather he grow up to be able to walk up to a stranger and have a good conversation then be able to program in assembly any day.
As for the slashdot comment, I can't look at porn at work so.... I read slashdot, hey come to think of it this tookt me 10 minutes to type, I just made $8.50 responding to you.
This is reporting the physical age of the participants only. The key demographic of MySpace is actually based on mental age. This is still being actively maintained at between seven and eight years old. (Die in a fire all you hotlinking mo-fo's!)
Is it just me or does the math in the summary not add up?
"More than half of MySpace's users are now 35 or older."
Remember, "more than half" is >=51%
"...the 35-54 group at MySpace grew to 41 percent in August"
I'll be honest, I'm not so great at math, but I could have sworn that 41 51.
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
I'm 38 and have most of my real friends on the site. It's a great way to stay in touch with people you don't see often. Being older you tend to have friends spread over great distances, mostly because over the years you meet people from all over. So it would make sense that myspace would become more useful for us older people where younger people just see it as a fad and get board with it quickly. I don't use it to meet singles, I use it to chat with friends or make general announcements. It's also an easy way to share an experiences (like a vacation) with all your friends. recently I had a friend loose her grandmother and it was a way for her to share her grief with her friends and also let the world know of an important person for her had passed away. It's a great new way to communicate and like anything it can be used for bad purposes. As far as the pedophile thing, well that can happen at the mall just as easily as it can on myspace. the difference is are the parents doing their job monitoring what their children are doing... It's a new world, so there are new things for parents to watch for.
I don't really see what all the fuss is about. There's more to MySpace than pedophiles and teenagers. I joined MySpace because it allowed me to find some friends from high school that I lost contact with. It was a wonderful feeling to "find" them again on this site and meet up with them. :)
This is exactly where NewsCorps wants to be.
What age group has the disposable income to buy what NewsCorps is selling? What age group is less likely to be caught up in trends, resulting in a longer-term relationship with MySpace? What age group is likely to have a positive impact on MySpace's current "immature" image?
Whether intended or not, they are benefiting from the hype generated by the youth, which is now going to have a positive effect on their business. It's a pretty basic concept: sell to kids, which in turn attracts adult attention.
I really though less was more
-m10
After reading through a few posts, I am a little stunned at how uninformed Slashdot users are.
"MySpace is for pedophiles"
"MySpace is a fad"
"MySpace is bad"
Social networking is revolutionizing the way our world works. The kids discovered it, and used it. Now the adults are discovering how useful it can be. Soon enough it will be like email. I am over 25, have an active social life, and MySpace has become part of my daily routine. It is socially generated content that keeps me up to date on the lives of the people I actually find interesting - my friends! Stop listening to the 10pm news about how someone's daughter was stalked by some perv on MySpace. With over 111 million users, those cases are few and far between. Educate your children, stop being a stupid american and pointing the finger elsewhere, you know who is at fault. To all you older folks out there, what is wrong with embracing something youthful? MySpace has humongous marketing potential. It isn't going anywhere for quite a while.
>I've wondered, in fact, if this might become a new business model in the new internet economy. A "hit of the moment with planned obsolescence". It seems to me that everything cool dies off, and internet fads spike quickly and then degrade.
In about 1890, Oscar Wilde said:
"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
It seems that the Foleygate scandal has the Republican House leadership in such disarray that they're having problems staying on the same Page.
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
Yes, eat all of our shirts.
...isn't cool anymore? Just because I'm a 40+ year old white guy who raps an obscene, extended version of "The Ballad of the Beverly Hillbillies" explaining in detail the relationship between Ellie Mae and all those animals and thinks I'm being funny while I do it, we've reached the point where rap isn't cool?
Damn it all to hell.
I worked hard on that song. A couple of drunk crowds at comedy clubs have loved at it. I guess now I'll have to ditch it from the act.
Damn.
Except in this case there is nothing about MySpace that says "kids only site". We're not talking about adults on some kindergarten's "I like ponies" chatroom (though even there they might have legitimate reasons to be, like making sure what their own kid could see there), we're talking about adults on a site that always had adult profiles too. It was never marketted as a teen-only site, it never had any mention of being a teen-only site, etc. So exactly _what_ warning signs would an adult have to tell them "it's a kid only place, they'll look funny at you if you go there"?
All you have there is some "omg, there are pedos on MySpace" media scare (and even there it's been only a couple of cases), and from there a bunch of people basically seem to extrapolate that everyone else there must be one. Which is a classic extrapolation fallacy, of the kind that goes "cats are mammals, hence all mammals are cats."
Or to put it otherwise, it's as illogical as reading that there was a rape in the central park, and from there assuming that every single male in the central park must be a rapist looking for a victim. Or that there are fraudsters on Ebay, hence everyone using Ebay must be looking for someone to scam. Etc.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
the reason why over half of the users are over the age of 35 is becase that half all works for Dateline NBC
/ http://suffocate.us
/ http://johngrayson.com
about being a 32 year old white guy with a myspace profile :-)
sarcasm:
-noun
1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.
... there were so many pedophiles on the net.
IANALBIPOOGL (I am not a Lawyer, but I play one on GrokLaw.)
Firstly, please accept this free advice: when reading Slashdot, imagine every comment spoken with a sarcastic sneer. Now add salt. In this case, high sodium is beneficial to your health.
Secondly, just because Slashdotters joke about MySpace (often these jokes are in poor taste, I agree) or have opinions about MySpace does not mean they are uninformed.
Thirdly, the assumption that Slashdotters are "stupid Americans" because they do not share your opinion of MySpace is irrational.
Matters of fact: MySpace runs on a server-side scripting language few Slashdotters have any respect for (ColdFusion), MySpace pages are often unreadable due to user customization (example: black text on dark background, not a fault of MySpace), few MySpace pages satisfy W3C standards (something Blogger Beta also has problems with currently), MySpace is owned by News Corporation (the world's biggest source of misinformation), open-ended customization options leave MySpace vulnerable to social engineering tactics that can lead to end-user installation of malware. Most importantly: MySpace is not the only "social networking" site; for example: Slashdot (to a certain extent).
Please do not assume this to be an excuse or argument. It is not. It is an explanation. Why do Slashdotters have a low opinion of MySpace? The above list.
Currently, my Blogger Beta site is experiencing many of the same issues (for example, I prefer XHTML 1.1 which does not allow for iframes) and I do not claim to have a perfect solution. I simply ask you to remember that criticisms of MySpace are not criticisms of social networking (any more than criticisms of certain politicians are criticisms of democracy). Something better will come along.
I guess it's back to IM again!
Love and kisses,
Mark Foley (R-FL and big stud!)
That is all.
Because if that were true, then Mark Foley would be considered a pederast and not a pedophile like the media is portraying him as.
It's been in common usage for thirty years as a suffix indicating scandal-and-coverup-in-Washington on the topic of X in Xgate. Given the average age of the slashdot poster, that probably means its common entrance into the English (or at least American) language likely predates your existence on this orbiting mudball of ours. In other words, if you want to bitch about it effectively you're going to have to invent a time machine.
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
Chances are that most of the 'children' on Myspace were adults and police posing as children to trap predators and they finally got tired of it and moved along...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I sure was.
Actually, the trend I've seen is an awful lot of musicians trying to do self-promotion via YouTube videos. I think that's one of the "new, uncharted territories" for unsigned musicians. Finally, a way to promote oneself via homemade music videos, broadcast for free to the whole world.
MySpace probably sees a lot of "crossover" here though, because people can build a "starting point" web page off MySpace and link to their YouTube videos from there.
Yeah, I know a lot of musicians who claim that a lot of people find them through MySpace. Not that it's the only thing they do online. A lot of them make their own websites anyway, but MySpace is a good first way to get presence on the web, as well as being a way to link up with other bands.
What we really want to know is how many of them are 99 or above.
You just got troll'd!
45 year old carl has internet phone sex with 67 year mischa, omg we gotta catch these predators!
Watergate, Whitewater, etc.
And if the president is getting in trouble, they use the word water.