Slashdot Mirror
Why Young Males Are No Longer the Most Important Tech Demographic
An anonymous reader writes "The Atlantic has an article discussing how 18- to 35-year-old males are losing their place as the most important demographic for tech adoption. 'Let me break out the categories where women are leading tech adoption: internet usage, mobile phone voice usage, mobile phone location-based services, text messaging, Skype, every social networking site aside from LinkedIn, all Internet-enabled devices, e-readers, health-care devices, and GPS. Also, because women still are the primary caretakers of children in many places, guess who controls which gadgets the young male and female members of the family get to purchase or even use?' The article points out that most of the tech industry hasn't figured this out yet — perhaps in part to a dearth of women running these companies."
"Internet usage, mobile phone voice usage, mobile phone location-based services, text messaging, Skype, every social networking site aside from LinkedIn, all Internet-enabled devices, e-readers, health-care devices, and GPS." --- Most of these things all revolve around communicating with others. Daughters used to spend all their time talking on the phone (watch an old episode of Gidget for an example). Now it's texting on internet devices.
Healthcare makes sense, since it's usually the mom that deals with sick kids. Ditto GPS/location services since they are driving the kids around. And e-readers are handy to use while waiting for the kids to finish with their doctor appointments or soccer games.
I draw the line at buying some minivan or SUV though.
I like my car.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
NEWSFLASH! No one can multi-task. Only switch between single tasks. Don't know of any evidence women do that better. There is evidence the more people do it the worse they become at it (which is a bit unusual, one expects practice to help on a task).
The young male demographic has already adopted tech, so adoption will be low. New technology will be targeted at people who haven't adopted tech yet, because those markets aren't as saturated and competetive. It was bound to happen in a maturing industry. Young males still use more tech then females though.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Well, the newer models of humans come with dual core, so they can truly multitask. The rest of us just have to wait for the proper timeslices. :P
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
This is geeks we're talking about. Mating is out of the question.
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
I have never met a member of the general population that liked the office ribbon. It confuses the hell out of my wife - which is a giant pain since it also confuses the hell out of me, who is usually her tech support. This results in routine 5-10 minute "find the option" sessions where we search for what used to be obvious. I predict a very similar reaction to Windows 8, just like Windows 7 confused the heck out of my wife and mom.
The whole problem with these UX designers is they forget that it is 2012 and EVERYONE ALREADY KNOWS HOW TO USE COMPUTERS, starting from 8 years old on!
It doesn't matter if something is "easy to use for a novice" to computers when there are no novices remaining on the planet. It is much more important to KEEP CHANGE TO A MINIMUM. People in general do not deal well with change in something they are used to. Anyone who has assisted in an office-wide rollout of a new software program will attest to this.
This article and your post are both yet more examples of misandric garbage being passed off as science... the article written by a corporate 'empowered' woman of course, and who knows what your interest is, but I doubt it's as altruistic as you want the reader to believe. How many people here would believe an article written by a male saying that men are the be-all end all?
It's not about offense.. it's about these ignorant people demanding that us geeks dumb things down to their level even when it's not really possible to do without sacrificing functionality that we need. There's nothing wrong with ignorance btw, because it implies that one could still want to learn. WILLFUL ignorance however, is THE issue of this society's problems today.
Being part of a dominant consumer group is NOT the same thing as being tech-relevant, or even important in terms of trending new innovations. See, in order to innovate, there needs to be a group of people who are willing to take on early adoption. This is key... most of this is done by men. As to why, I could only guess that, but my limited understanding of psychology tells me that men are the ones who are more willing to take risks to differentiate and gain advantage. Read the list in the article.. all of those things had been used by men long before they were mainstream...ie when they were initially adopted for use. This piece is just an attempt at proving some sort of gynocentric ego.
On top of that, women tend to more productive, even if they play Farmville during work time. Men do the same - they just play some other games, watch porn or talk about sports with their colleagues. On IT field it has been discovered that women's ability to multitask is a significant bonus. Men can only concentrate on one thing at a time. If something else happens, they get distracted. This is why you sometimes see people complaining about instant messages and emails during work - they cannot multitask.
unbiased citation needed, from a study not run by people with huge political conflicts of interest. This is one of those memes that is a load of rubbish. It needs to die. BOTH genders have trouble 'multitasking'.. just ask anyone who's seen a woman driving an SUV while chatting on the cellphone.
>Especially in Asia where students and women actually really want to work in IT and are good at it.
Thank you for acknowledging that much of the problem isn't discrimination, but peoples' choices. It has always troubled me to hear people talk about how important it is to secure womens' rights, then in the next breath talk about all the ways society needs to impose different thinking on women and girls in order to make them do what we think is best for them. The reality is that there are not very many qualified female IT workers in the US because American women generally do not want to work in IT.
Now someone will bring up social messaging and cultural attitudes towards gender roles, and blame society for the way most American women feel. Because that is totally respectful of women and not patronizing towards them at all.
This is basic diffusion model of business. Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, Laggards.
Here's what I recall with the adoption trend of mobile device consumption.
It started with the geeks, and then the guys.
Then teenagers adopted it. Holy buckets, text messaging went through the roof.
Smart devices came out. Mostly geeks, guys and the group of teenagers. Parents were still playing catch up to why their child sent 2000 text messages and now they owed $1k to the cell phone company.
Social media explodes onto the seen. The teenagers are growing up. They are consuming and in turn demanding more enhancements. Companies are responding because they need to keep adding adopters.
Social media became a status symbol. Note: I did not say cool. Cool is attitude, not imaginary friends, followers, tweets, etc. Cool is measured in binary, yes or no. There is no magical calculation that establishes cool. No amount of bling makes someone cool. You are either Fonzy or Richie. Analogy stolen from Dennis Miller.
Now there are apps, web and mobile, for all social sharing for everyone. It is going from saturation to supersatured as the industry tries to secure all the late adopters.
The next innovation is coming.
Rinse repeat recycle.
There was a study that there are about 4% of the population that are true multi-taskers. The tests were done regarding cell phone talking and driving. I do believe that a small group can do more than one task at a time, such as typing this message and holding a conversation.
Good thing you remembered this nameless study, otherwise you'd have lost this argument! Phew!
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Just because the heads of these companies are male doesn't mean they don't know how to women.
I hope that's not the latest term for cross-dressing...the thought of Steve Ballmer in drag gives me the screaming meemies.
Blank until
My score on Multitask 2 disagrees with you. Practice also improves my play significantly. After not having played for months I only stayed alive for 85 seconds and I fell apart with 5 tasks. My record is 105 seconds with 6 things at once. After a while it's hard for me to gather enough visual information to play each game, and they all use keyboard input which overloads that part of my brain. Towards the end I can "think" what needs to be done, but not cause my fingers to do so quickly enough.
I usually multitask when playing the piano. I...
* Get fingers positioned right (both hands of course)
* Decide on little touches like dynamics, stoccato, pedaling, rubato, what emotional content I want to convey, if any; I often make these up anew each time
* Decide on changes to the piece, like different rhythms, extra grace notes, changed chords, etc.
* Evaluate my playing--"missed note", "incorrect dynamics", "this emotional arc sucks", "I really like that passage at that speed", etc.
* Perhaps read music
* Let my mind wander, thinking about the day or interactions I had with someone or sometimes a math problem (to calibrate difficulty, I was fiddling with pointwise approximations of complex measurable functions by polynomials almost everywhere a while ago, and the non-null-homotopicness of a particular curve yesterday)
* Listen to people if they're talking around me or listen to TV if it's on; I can tune these out if I wish
Interestingly I can't respond verbally to someone while playing the piano. I can understand someone perfectly and think of a response (nodding if yes/no, for instance), but the verbal part of my brain seems to be engaged with the music. As a rule I can multitask somewhat on simple similar tasks and I can multitask to a large extent on unrelated tasks. Oh, I often juggle or otherwise occupy my hands while doing other things (eg. reading, thinking about math). I vary the patterns somewhat to keep that part of me from getting bored so it's not just tossing and catching in the same basic pattern forever.
If none of this is multitasking to you, you'll have to clarify your use of the term.
There's a new subject for a poll right there:
How many times have you gotten laid using Slashdot?
I'd planned a long-winded reply to this, but screw it. I'm just going to say that if you came in and made an Asian joke, another group of people stereotyped as bad drivers, people would look down on you for it. If you ever uttered the n-word, people would look down on you for it. But men will always have the allowances, excuses and bullcrap reasons to make as many jokes bashing women as they want, and it will never change. They'll always laugh when faced with criticism, painting the woman calling them on it as a "humorless bitch" as if it doesn't hurt to see it happen in a forum I enjoy and want to feel a part of, but is always faced with the fact that she doesn't have a bulge between her legs.
And it does... hurt, meaning. Say you're joking if you want and that I'm just a humorless bitch. I'm just tired of hearing this asinine crap, and decided to say something about it. I almost didn't, because I know the reception this might get, but I don't really care.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
When I see it everywhere, yes, I start to take it a bit seriously. And I'm actually a very goofy person in day-to-day life. We're talking either get odd looks or make people guffaw goofy. But when you've dealt with sexism, yourself being the target at times in your daily life, you don't really care if someone thinks you're humorless when you point it out.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
It has always troubled me to hear people talk about how important it is to secure womens' rights
I will repeat this again: There is no such thing as womens' rights.
Let that sink in for a minute...
How did you react? Think about that.
Now, think about this: There are rights that all Americans have. There are no special right for women, blacks, or any other group. If women are not being treated like people, then that needs to be addressed but it does NOT give them any special rights.
Let me make that clear: All Americans have the same rights. If any Americans are having these rights being denied, then that needs to be addressed. Giving and "special" rights to any one sub-group takes away from the rights of everyone else.
Clear?
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
No, actually, I wouldn't. In my workplace, we all routinely sexually-harass each other. If I WAS the type of person you're talking about, my boss would be enjoying two hots and a cot for a long, long time by now. I can very easily distinguish relatively innocent humor from actual misogyny. You can't judge everything I do or interpret in life from a comment I made. You're taking an extreme and placing it on me, someone who's just tired of flippant sexism.
And as you say in your next comment, added to this, that's in your area. There was a case on Judge Judy years and years ago, involving a woman who tried getting out of a ticket; one of the factors she cited was that she'd seen him pull over "just women" and he was discriminating against her and women in general. As it turned out, they reviewed his pull-over record an found the opposite. Not by a wide margin, but it definitely made her look like an idiot. That applies to your argument; you see a woman on a phone make a driving-blunder, and another guy being responsible, and that means the stereotype is true? A tiny sample, not subject to test conditions is suddenly fact? I've seen the exact reverse--men plowing through a red, women being responsible. Many, many times. Each time I see this behavior, whether it's a man or woman, I say "idiot fuckin' drivers!" not "MEN!"
My problem is the proliferation of sexist commentary, everywhere you look. It's growing exponentially. To me, the flippant nature of it is almost more dangerous, as it simply becomes customary and acceptable. I've got a tough enough skin to roll my eyes in most cases and just let it go, especially on the internet, but it's still annoying. In the end, does it need to be said? Why is it "You're too sensitive, get off the internet!"/"Grow some balls!" instead of "Why do people have to act like douches and insult other people?" I hear this argument so many, TOO many times. I suppose it's more acceptable to be snide, snarky and generally mean than trying to be a good person, even if it means you're a little sensitive and taking things seriously sometimes.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
E.g. Why do gays have such bad taste in music?
Because they play only Madonna at the meetings. It's indoctrination. I'm an ex-gay; I would know.
You see, two weeks after a young gay guy comes out, he gets a welcome package in the mail. It includes some educational material*, "necessaries"**, a copy of the gay agenda, and an invitation to the next monthly meeting. If he doesn't go, his gay license is taken away (so nobody will have sex with him; well, girls might, but who cares?). They all end up at the meetings eventually. It's like a Nazi dance party--glitter and leather everywhere. Anyway, at those parties all they play is Madonna. The leaders say it "encourages unity". The truth is, Madonna bought the gay industry years ago for cheap, before she became 90% plastic. She supports her career now almost exclusively with young gay guys who don't know any better. It's tragic really; I mean why would gay guys pick a female artist when there's so many hot guys to choose from nowadays with their YouTube videos and amazing pecs and delicious arms and... I mean, there are better artists than Madonna.
Anyway, I got out of that senseless life and am living clean. No gay for me, thanks; I like girls now. I tore up my license last week. My roommate tried to stop me, but in his tears all I saw was the glittery taint of corporate greed. I let him kiss me one last time, just a little--we can't all be perfect!--but I'm done. I like girls now. Oh, I said that already.
But yeah, that's why gays have such bad taste in music. So now you know.
* Includes: several pamphlets on jargon, at basic (top, bottom), intermediate (39, chibi), and advanced (chicken-of-the-sea, curry queen) levels; HIV/AIDS and other STD prevention information; a list of common hookup methods (Grindr, Manhunt, Craig's List local m4m section); a book on developing a lisp; several quick-start fashion and decorating guides; and of course Dr. Niederwieser's magnum opus, Bend Over!: The Complete Guide to Anal Sex for Men! .
** Includes: condoms, lube, poppers, a dildo, your gay license, tickets to a Lady Gaga concert near you, a gym membership, and new jeans that make your ass look great.
See, women in general from my experience seem to think that "being a good person" means being overly sensitive etc. as a sort of "well, I don't mind, but someone else might!". There are men like this too of course but most of them are gay men and the remainder are relatively speaking rare. Except in certain professions, such as psychologists, councilors, and politicians looking for votes et al.
It really doesn't mean that however. Being a good person means being there to help someone through a rough time, or to help someone that IS overly sensitive to understand a situation that may have occurred and help them through it. Going through life with such a thin skin as to be offended by this sort of stuff is not a good thing. I understand if it gets to physical harassment or someone gets singled out etc, but the rest of it is just sort of, you know, guys complaining about their wives/women in general etc. Guys don't have the same sort of crazy databasing of "everything he's done wrong" that most women seem to have, so we tend to generalize more. We complain about women, and women complain about men, they're just more specific about it.
Besides that, a LOT of men, best friends for years even, tend to insult and generally carry on with each other on a very regular basis. A lot of over-sensitive people can't even tell the difference, and I've had the comment said by many many women about some of my relationships as well as relationships they see around them, generally between men, of "You'd think they were mortal enemies".
A lot of this comes from men and women internalizing things differently etc... however most of the actual harmful behavior towards women ended upwards of 20 years ago. Right now a LOT of men are pushing back against conforming to some of this bullshit. Whereas the minority, the real idiots and misogynists were the ones doing it before.
Unfortunately this form of pushback causes some guys to just pick up some of the older, harmful ways of sexism, even though they don't really believe half of what they're saying.
We as men, in general, and not as an absolute rule, internalized things a LOT differently. I had the unfortunate situation of growing up in a family where the women are all understanding and have a great sense of humor, and all thought it was great that I generally tend to say the first thing that comes to my mind. We're also a family that appreciates honesty, even to the point of brutality, which also doesn't help.
This caused a lot of awkward situations as you might imagine. I sent several girls whose mothers I guess actually WERE like the woman I mentioned before off crying, without even knowing what the fuck I had done.
Basically what I'm saying here is that there has to be some give and take. We as men should learn to control our mouths around you women a bit as we grow up, but you as women need to grow thicker skins as you grow up. It will never work as long as one group or the other demands absolute adaptation from the other. Previously we had the women being the ones forced to adapt and now we're getting to where more and more onus is being put on the men to adapt, when we're already doing what we can for the most part.
I should also mention that men throw off the adaptation around other men, and for a long time the internet was 95%+ men in most of its dark corners. Some guys will push back because they're losing one of their few remaining bastions of sanity where they can say what they like.
Whether women like to be treated as possessions or objects or not, men are genetically geared to be hunters and warriors. Hunters and warriors that got us to the very top of the food chain. That sort of gearing is closer to grizzly bear than bunny rabbit, and grizzlies view everything in the world around them as objects to be possessed. At least 99% of us understand that women are not, but you've got to cut us some slack for discussing them as such, especially in an environment where we may not think any women are around to hear. Women for the most part ARE completely foreign, but beautiful, to many of us. Thats not a dig at the slashdot community etc, I'm married and women are STILL completely foreign to me.
I had a friend who confessed to hitting her husband and thought it was okay; I told her it wasn't, flat-out.
You talk the talk, but do you really transcend gender (to infinity and beyond!)? If your friend's husband hit her you would get her to call the police, help her apply for a retraining order, let her stay at your place or find her a shelter, find her a divorce lawyer, work with her to destroy him legally, etc. You would accept nothing less. When she hits her husband you say "that's no OK" and order her another margarita.
There was a study that there are about 4% of the population that are true multi-taskers. The tests were done regarding cell phone talking and driving. I do believe that a small group can do more than one task at a time, such as typing this message and holding a conversation.
Good thing you remembered this nameless study, otherwise you'd have lost this argument! Phew!
Good thing I can apparently google cell phone driving multitasking in less than 5s and note the 3rd entry
I may have been lazy or in a hurry with the last post. You, however, should please turn in your geek card to the next real geek you meet.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.