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SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Monday October 01 2018, @08:37PM   Printer-friendly
from the how-do-other-countries-compare? dept.

Pew Research:

The shares of U.S. adults who say they use the internet, use social media, own a smartphone or own a tablet computer are all nearly identical to the shares who said so in 2016. The share who say they have broadband internet service at home currently stands at 65% – nearly identical to the 67% who said this in a survey conducted in summer 2015. And when it comes to desktop or laptop ownership, there has actually been a small dip in the overall numbers over the last two years – from 78% in 2016 to 73% today.

A contributing factor behind this slowing growth is that parts of the population have reached near-saturation levels of adoption of some technologies. Put simply, in some instances there just aren't many non-users left. For example, nine-in-ten or more adults younger than 50 say they go online or own a smartphone. And a similar share of those in higher-income households have laptops or desktops.

The poor, the rural, the elderly, and those who couldn't care less are the hold-outs.


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  • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday October 02 2018, @03:35PM (2 children)

    by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Tuesday October 02 2018, @03:35PM (#742835) Journal

    I'd say a lot of definition drift. Google's definition is, "websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking." (Which parrots https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/social_media [oxforddictionaries.com] ) Merriam Webster differentiates a bit further, ": forms of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos)"

    I wouldn't have thought to have classified it by tone or weight of content. Then again, being social to me isn't just or primarily about "Hey, how's the weather today?" either, but rather how one relates to others (or lack thereof).

    I'm not saying that's necessarily a popular view. If I felt that.... I'd probably be talking about it on Facebook instead. ;)

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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday October 02 2018, @09:06PM (1 child)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 02 2018, @09:06PM (#743070)

    Hmm that definition is painfully inclusive to the point of both of us using a punch card FORTRAN library in 1970 would make us social media buddies. Any time two human communicate via electronic means is social media.

    Something I got to think about over the last few hours is modern social media is the equivalent of a fraternal social order/club from a century ago, whereas the fine wood working weblog/imageboard/weblog is the equivalent of the woodworkers club meeting from just a couple decades ago.

    Or its a social media if there is no specified activity; if there is a specified activity (such as woodworking) then its not generic social media its a woodworking blog. G+ might be empty but its social media, eevblog is a EE vlog dude and his community, not social media.

    I would imagine SN is in between as there should only be on topic articles and inside an article there should only be on topic comments, mostly.

    • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday October 02 2018, @09:41PM

      by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Tuesday October 02 2018, @09:41PM (#743081) Journal

      You're right that we can certainly distinguish shades of grey as to what is and isn't social media. Nobody denies Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace (anyone still use that?) are clearly within the bound. Does dedicated blogging qualify. What of Blogger and LiveJournal..... and then what of the Journals here at SN? (Which are clearly interactive between members... But not the primary focus of the site, either.) YouTube?

      Yet there is a dedicated focus - one that is pretty wide ranging in terms of interesting news. (Your woodworking). It differs from the "I can create whatever I want and all will see it" model in that submissions are moderated to stay within the lines. (And then we go offtopic and get downmodded for it). Yet is this just a news outlet and nothing more? That doesn't seem quite right either - without the ability for we in the peanut gallery to chime in and debate/argue/kick it around it isn't the same thing. Like you said, an in between. SoylentNews is people - yet News. "Social News?"

      Is there a far side of the spectrum where we say, "that's not social media at all...." One bound is "no opportunity for feedback" - a lot of news sites ditched the ability to comment on their stories, for example. There's no "social" at those media sites. I suppose by default if you're doing "social" online you're using a form of media to do so, unless there's a different definition for media.

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