Youths No Longer Predominant on MySpace 246
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.'"
The Truth (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Truth (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, are we talking Myspace here, or are we talking Congress?
Re:The Truth (Score:5, Funny)
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I believe the correct spelling is "herd".
Re:The Truth (Score:5, Funny)
He bent a page over.
What a scandal! (Score:3, Funny)
*gate has been common usage for 30+ years (Score:2)
Re:The Truth (Score:5, Funny)
The Library doesn't let you lick the pages.
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Or more sharks for myspace to wave at as it jumps over them -- depending on how you look at it.
Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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There, fixed your statement. =P
The MySpaces age increase is probably largely due to the fact that it's now used by every Tom, Dick, and Harry marketing person to advertise their new movie, product, or music. Though, I don't doubt some is due to the attraction of more sick individ
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You're going to have to do a lot better than that if you want me to believe Tom and Harry have started using it now too...
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If it weren't for the "adults", there would be no myspace for you to show off risque pictures of yourself on. So shaddap.
Demented and sad, but social (Score:2)
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...
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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.
It didn't. It's the myspace part. It would be like a 40 ye
Heh (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Heh (Score:4, Insightful)
There's also the "Good GOD, Myspace is such a shithole, no self respecting adult would WANT to go there" part of it that probably throws people.
The Myspace thing makes sense for kids. They don't have cars (to spend time with real-life friends) and they're angst ridden (thus they need somewhere to gush their little emo selves). But for well adjusted adults, I don't get the appeal.
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I keeed, I keeed.
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I'll give you one (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Wow (Score:2, Interesting)
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 m
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Noone has forgotten how to talk to a real person. I talk to quite a few every day, and so do most people I know. The Internet hasn't made people forget how to deal with people in person, any more than hand-writing letters has. Just because, say, Shakespeare or Hono
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Clearly he's bought the stereotype that Congressmen are pedos.
(Insightful? C'mon, mods. Try a little harder.)
(PS Do you know what the word "stereotype" means?)
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MySpace: A place for preds.
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More predators, less victims.
FEWER victims. Sorry, it's just so painful to read bad grammar.
Re:The Truth (Score:5, Funny)
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fbi agents and congressfolk (Score:2)
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.
proves the point..... (Score:5, Funny)
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)
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Life DOES imitate art!
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"For 14 year old boys and the 52 year old men that love them"
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SNL (Score:2)
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MySpace is where they go to take part in the business of being a pedophile, Slashdot is just another spot on the
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I'm doubt these statistics are correct... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'm doubt these statistics are correct... (Score:5, Insightful)
Between that and movies (myspace.com/moviename), it's pretty amazing to see how that service has become mainstreamed and co-opted by the adult/business world.
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116 million MySpace accounts so far... (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember, girls ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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 ...
A little closer to reality... (Score:2, Insightful)
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 acco
Surprising... (Score:2)
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No, it's sad that adults would be attracted to the MySpace product. It's a piece of shit suitable for juvinial social hijinks...
because its so yesterday (Score:5, Interesting)
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Nothing freaks out a kid like thinking they might agree with their p
Re:because its so yesterday (Score:4, Insightful)
Dont listen to this guy, your kids will see right through it. He is right in one respect though - teens want their own area in which to interact. You keep following them to all their places, whether online or in real life, and they'll keep looking for new places.
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You obviously don't have kids. In 95% of situations, you ARE a loser in your kid's eyes when they are 12 to 20. They rebel, they want to disassociate and they are prepetually embarrased by everything you do, even if you don't deserve it. It is called being a teenager.
The key isn't to embrace everything they love, it is to embrace everything that they love and you want them to stay away from.
Re:because its so yesterday (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, the segregation of the children from the traditional family unit is certainly one of the most valuable modern tools in the arsenal of the profit-minded corporation. It rather puts one in mind of lions hunting herds across the savannah - seperate the weak and young, then feed on them...
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Of course it is. Why do you think all the old people are there?
Re:because its so yesterday (Score:5, Interesting)
That was my first thought when I saw the headline. I don't really talk to teenagers these days, so I don't know about MySpace, but some time ago I read about somebody's "theory of cool" (I can't remember where) that seemed pretty accurate. The idea is that there are stages that pretty much everything "cool" goes through, and it went something like this:
I knew MySpace was heading in this direction, but there's one thing that might save it. Apparently it started out as a place for musicians and became a general social networking site, and as it has become less cool, it seems to be reverting to a place for musicians... And there it might continue to eek out enough profits to get by. But we all knew it wouldn't stay the cool place forever.
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. The key might be that, instead of planning to continue growing at ridiculous speeds, these sites might figure out how to squeeze everything they can out of the spike, and then degrade gracefully, either without any great loss or, if they're lucky, to become a minor fixture on the net.
On the other hand, I guess there's no incentive to do that. From the point of view of the owners, it's better to sell during the spike for a ridiculously high price, and let someone else deal with trying to keep the growth rate up on the now "uncool" venture. First Napster, now MySpace, next up, YouTube.
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Interesting. It seems to me that YouTube is already between #3 and #4. Where are the cool kids now?
I also wonder how many of those older my-spacers are the parents of the teenagers with accounts used basically to spy on their kids.Re: (Score:2)
Couldn't tell you. These days, I'm one of the "old people", and cool kids generally don't tell us what they're up to.
Re:because its so two-centuries-ago (Score:2)
In about 1890, Oscar Wilde said:
"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. [quotationspage.com]"
Wait, wait, wait. You mean rap... (Score:4, Funny)
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.
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I feel that way about Myspace too, and I'm in my twenties. It was cool when I joined and there were about 3 million. Then it got worse when they let the damn kids in. Then worse when my ex-gf joined a year later. Now my whole freakin town is on there. So many people I never wanted to see again. I never check my messages anymore, and I'm
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Seriously, it may have to do with how they are promoting the service now. I was required to sign up for a myspace page for a contest I wanted to join for a fox tv show. There's zero personal information listed there, and the only interaction is my deletion of various phishing emails that are routed through it by fictitious people "desperate to meet me". Just because you sign up for myspace, doesn't mean you use it,
Negative impact on site value (Score:2)
Fr
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What a double-standard (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Myspace is like a fancy telephone: it's anothe
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Why would they do that?"
Although the article did say the people often "lie about their age" I didn't see you conclusion as to the actual spread in the article
While it has a teeny-bopper reputation, (Score:2)
I'd like to know how they measure age (Score:5, Funny)
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.
how does comscore gather the data ? (Score:2, Interesting)
via spyware [google.com] of course
or as they call it researchware, just like HP board was researching its board members
No Good For Working Folks (Score:2, Insightful)
Water "Cool" er (Score:2, Interesting)
This just in... (Score:5, Funny)
Tom had no comment other than to say that he's your friend.
MyDot (Score:2)
Lying (Score:2)
I guess this is good... it means there isn't actually a problem to worry about anymore.
Dear God! (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Old Age (Score:5, Interesting)
What??? (Score:2)
Do they have a stat on Cam whores? (Score:2)
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 clu
Will somebody, please.. (Score:5, Funny)
Breaking news (Score:2)
This just in. People on MySpace have changed the way they lie about their age.
The Employees, On the Other Hand... (Score:2)
This is physical age... (Score:2)
Math? (Score:2)
"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.
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*sigh* (Score:2)
Who knew... (Score:2)
Oh well... (Score:2)
Love and kisses,
Mark Foley (R-FL and big stud!)
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Comeon. Give me a break...as annoying as a lot of myspace users may be the service sure isn't useless, and it's only as dangerous as the user will allow it to be. It *is* a good way to stay in touch and find people you may have been friends wtih in the past but don't have any other means of communication between...and being in a band (I am) you cannot do *anything* anymore without a myspace account. It's very very handy to promote directly to peop
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Re:Or faking their age (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Or faking their age (Score:5, Insightful)
I think I've been to myspace maybe half a dozen times in total. I find the layout of most pages visually offensive. Useless sensory overload.
Teens look for a community of their own. They find one, build it, make it good, then the corporations move in to make money off of it. That lasts for a while, then the corporations eventually destroy it. Good example: Rap. I could come up with more.
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What he said.
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The problem is that they (the youth - and pretty much everyone else) still have a consumer mentality. They confuse synchrony of taste and style with community. At least the ones in it for the meat market cou
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How to read Slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
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