Have your say
1) Due to technical difficulties as well as people who weren't able to join the quiz, Bradley James posted the video to YouTube.
Have to say it was somewhat inspiring to hear the Merlin theme playing as hundreds of people's names began to appear, logging in. And then it occurred to me that in a time of great need, King Arthur (and the Camelot knights!) returned :D
2) Not that you'd guess from, say, the quiz participants, but why are so few women online? I mean, in the early days of the Internet, or even the web, I could get it. But we are several generations in now and major platforms are still so heavily male. And apparently it may be because fewer women are online at all.
I say this because I was reading about how Reddit still skews young, male, and white. And I thought I'd check the demographics of Twitter, which I found rather startling. "34% of Twitter users are females and 66% are males." Yet "24% of All Internet male users use Twitter, whereas 21% of All Internet Female users use Twitter." That suggests a dramatic gender imbalance in online activity. I looked first at Twitter because while only "22% of US adults use Twitter" it has long had more of an influence on public policy, news stories, and official information distribution than other larger platforms. ("71% of Twitter users say they use the network to get their news")
Similarly Facebook is 43% female and 57% male and "Of all the people on the internet, 83% of Women & 75% of Men use Facebook." Now according to YouTube, over 50% of its users are women, but it doesn't set this statistic in comparison to overall use or provide actual numbers. (One would think that the highest use of any Internet platform would be Google search, but if so I didn't find that info).
But returning to Reddit, why, I wonder, is the platform still so heavily young and male after all this time? Because Reddit is an old platform in both years and style. You'd think its userbase would have aged in the last decade. And what about its function tends to attract more men?
My first thought was that its upvote feature tends to create a lot of competition. And a site that is focused on topics rather than people may lack a personal element that women would prefer. I realize that the cultural climate on Reddit is also off-putting to many, but let's face it, there's plenty of that on all platforms these days. It apparently is not preventing women from using YouTube, and there are undoubtedly subreddits that are primarily used by women.
The site is used by an enormous number of people worldwide (46% outside the U.S.), and is the third most used user-generated platform after YouTube and Facebook. Its audience also tends to be more educated, which is again puzzling given that women are earning more college degrees than men now at all levels other than PhDs.
Anyone have any thoughts, both about Reddit and the missing women online? Could it be because women have stronger social ties offline?
3) Speaking of asking opinions, so often I've seen the issue of reader comments framed as "why don't they comment" (of which there are many reasons, and this is a good summary of them).
Without question, most people do not, regardless of what the content is. So I'm more curious about why people do comment to something. Therefore, a poll!
View poll: Why Comment?
View poll: Kudos Footer-164
Comments at Dreamwidth
.
Have to say it was somewhat inspiring to hear the Merlin theme playing as hundreds of people's names began to appear, logging in. And then it occurred to me that in a time of great need, King Arthur (and the Camelot knights!) returned :D
2) Not that you'd guess from, say, the quiz participants, but why are so few women online? I mean, in the early days of the Internet, or even the web, I could get it. But we are several generations in now and major platforms are still so heavily male. And apparently it may be because fewer women are online at all.
I say this because I was reading about how Reddit still skews young, male, and white. And I thought I'd check the demographics of Twitter, which I found rather startling. "34% of Twitter users are females and 66% are males." Yet "24% of All Internet male users use Twitter, whereas 21% of All Internet Female users use Twitter." That suggests a dramatic gender imbalance in online activity. I looked first at Twitter because while only "22% of US adults use Twitter" it has long had more of an influence on public policy, news stories, and official information distribution than other larger platforms. ("71% of Twitter users say they use the network to get their news")
Similarly Facebook is 43% female and 57% male and "Of all the people on the internet, 83% of Women & 75% of Men use Facebook." Now according to YouTube, over 50% of its users are women, but it doesn't set this statistic in comparison to overall use or provide actual numbers. (One would think that the highest use of any Internet platform would be Google search, but if so I didn't find that info).
But returning to Reddit, why, I wonder, is the platform still so heavily young and male after all this time? Because Reddit is an old platform in both years and style. You'd think its userbase would have aged in the last decade. And what about its function tends to attract more men?
My first thought was that its upvote feature tends to create a lot of competition. And a site that is focused on topics rather than people may lack a personal element that women would prefer. I realize that the cultural climate on Reddit is also off-putting to many, but let's face it, there's plenty of that on all platforms these days. It apparently is not preventing women from using YouTube, and there are undoubtedly subreddits that are primarily used by women.
The site is used by an enormous number of people worldwide (46% outside the U.S.), and is the third most used user-generated platform after YouTube and Facebook. Its audience also tends to be more educated, which is again puzzling given that women are earning more college degrees than men now at all levels other than PhDs.
Anyone have any thoughts, both about Reddit and the missing women online? Could it be because women have stronger social ties offline?
3) Speaking of asking opinions, so often I've seen the issue of reader comments framed as "why don't they comment" (of which there are many reasons, and this is a good summary of them).
Without question, most people do not, regardless of what the content is. So I'm more curious about why people do comment to something. Therefore, a poll!
View poll: Why Comment?
View poll: Kudos Footer-164
Comments at Dreamwidth
.