48% of People Under 42 Spend More Time Socializing Online Than Off (zdnet.com) 37
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: When you think of digital entertainment, your mind might turn first to online video-streaming services, such as Sling TV or YouTube TV, and video-on-demand services, including Netflix or Acorn TV. However, consultant Deloitte's 17th annual "Digital Media Trends" survey suggests traditional television shows and movies are no longer the only forms of entertainment. Younger generations, often called Gen Zs and Millennials, are increasingly turning to user-generated content (UGC) -- which relies on unpaid contributors rather than traditional media professionals -- and video games to find personal fulfillment, value, and meaning. These younger users are creating a vibrant, immersive, and social tapestry of experiences with UGC, video games, music, and social media all playing significant roles. And that move towards UGC and gaming could have big implications for everyone.
Deloitte's survey found that about a third (32%) of consumers view online experiences as meaningful substitutes for in-person interactions, with that proportion increasing to 50% among Gen Zs and Millennials. Almost half (48%) of these younger generations engage more with others on social media than in the physical world, and 40% of them socialize more in video games than offline. Of course, it's not only younger people who view online experiences as meaningful substitutes for in-person interactions. [...] Yet those born after 1981, the usual dividing line between Generation X and Millennials, are much more inclined to live their lives online.
Deloitte's survey found that about a third (32%) of consumers view online experiences as meaningful substitutes for in-person interactions, with that proportion increasing to 50% among Gen Zs and Millennials. Almost half (48%) of these younger generations engage more with others on social media than in the physical world, and 40% of them socialize more in video games than offline. Of course, it's not only younger people who view online experiences as meaningful substitutes for in-person interactions. [...] Yet those born after 1981, the usual dividing line between Generation X and Millennials, are much more inclined to live their lives online.
Not surprising.... (Score:2)
That a survey for "digital media trends" would bias towards saying digital experiences are taking over. Confirmation bias is a powerful thing.
Poor Substitute (Score:1)
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Not news (Score:1)
Fucking cheaters! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Fucking cheaters! (Score:5, Funny)
I used to be young and pretty. Now, I'm ... well, on a good day, I'm 'and'.
TIme management (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, one have to work, study, go through the daily chores... Then technology made it obviously much easier to keep interacting with other people while you're at all these things.
I meet most of my friends and relatives occasionally, but I keep in touch with them through messaging and social media several times a day, which would otherwise be impossible. So, it's not the case that I'm actually interacting less with them in person, but only much more "on-line".
This is in line with what I told my students... (Score:2)
Re:This is in line with what I told my students... (Score:4, Funny)
Will they have sex? Probably, but through some app. It's a very sad state of affairs. The smartphone is little more than a trojan horse that humanity will benefit from eradicating.
It's appropriate, then, that Trojan is a brand of condom...
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Say what you will, but I"m blessed to have many LONG term friends, that I met in meatspace throughout my life...many of those I've known for several decades.
These are people I get together with as often as possible in meatspace....these are people I can count on.
As the old saying goes...
"Friends help you move.... ...REAL friends help you move bodies".
Real friends are there for you in real life for fun..and when you need them when times are not so fun.
How man
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How many friends will still be friends when your old online posting is dug up and it's now taboo or taken out of context? very few.
In a way, online social people are like the politicians everybody hates. It's making people play politician on a small scale and they don't even realize...
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You sound like some high school drop out 20 somethings I know but with a little more grammar. You must be trying hard while on your daddy's computer/account?
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I was more hoping that smartphones will help in eradicating humanity.
And Gen Z's the loneliest generation alive... (Score:5, Insightful)
Source [psychologytoday.com]...
This shouldn't surprise anyone because huge swaths of the Internet are radioactive garbage compared to where things were pre-social media. The Internet in 2023 is night and day worse culturally compared to where it was in the 90s and early millennium. It shouldn't surprise anyone that having an extremely online lifestyle leads to isolation and mental health problems considering how toxic things are.
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Today, I see an obsession around the idea of having "power," of knowing more than others and arrogantly saying so, of controlling what can be discussed and what cannot, of "beating" the other at any cost. Today all you have to d
Re:And Gen Z's the loneliest generation alive... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, the internet sure went downhill when the IQ requirement dropped sufficiently that the high-school bullies could use it.
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Today, I see an obsession around the idea of having "power," of knowing more than others and arrogantly saying so, of controlling what can be discussed and what cannot, of "beating" the other at any cost. Today all you have to do is say something slightly out of "herd thinking" and half a dozen SJWs with blood in their eyes (or their opposite, neo-Nazi likes) immediately show up and try to virtually eliminate/ "cancel" you.
The internet was better when you could be racist/sexist/etc without consequences!
You're saying far more about yourself than you are about other people.
Re:And Gen Z's the loneliest generation alive... (Score:4, Insightful)
My friend, you just proved my point. You have no idea who I am and yet you have already foolishly come out assuming that I would be the "incarnation of evil on earth", without stopping for even a second to think about what I would be describing. No my silly friend, back then me and my friends would discuss banal things like "Star Wars vs Star Trek", which anime would be the most interesting to watch (and back then it was hard to access content from outside the country). No one was discussing "how to enslave or subjugate others", that just happens in your head in your mad rush to "cancel" others.
In short, the problem with the current internet is you and your arch enemies (the neo-Nazis I suppose), where the impression given to me is that you guys are the same thing only with reverse polarities.
How ironic (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a shame that "social media" are named that, given that on the whole they're profoundly anti-social. To the extent that Facebook and the like facilitate tracking down people from one's past, connecting with them, and then getting together with them IRL, they can be considered social.
But it seems that social media are mostly a substitute for social interaction. For a connection to be truly social, it must be in person, where we can see, hear, feel, and even smell the cues and feedback that only exist between living beings in close proximity.
Substituting Facebook for in-person interaction is like substituting masturbation for sex.
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To the extent that Facebook and the like facilitate tracking down people from one's past
Precisely why I've always avoided it.
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To the extent that Facebook and the like facilitate tracking down people from one's past, connecting with them, and then getting together with them IRL
That's one of the reasons to avoid Facebook like the plague, yes.
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It is far more like an addiction: it fails as a substitute; often making things worse, but people keep going back anyway hoping it'll fill the hole in their psyche when it's doing little good long term. It's why addiction cycles are crazy; doing the same thing hoping for better results...
Written communication is only about 20% of the full picture; probably less when these people don't really know each other.
Makes sense... (Score:3)
I am 45. I remember being ridiculed as a kid for my interest in BBS's and chatting with people. "How sad are you, that you need to talk to people on computers!"
By the time the people that were a few years younger than me, got onto the internet, as preteens, and early teenagers, where the likes of AOL (For Windows) made it more popular. So they weren't expose to the your such a geek for liking computers, that I did. Heck within a few years of that remark, myself and some of my other friends that were "computer nerds" seemed to get an unexpected surge of popularity, to "just one of the guys" level of popularity. Because these things were getting more popular.
Re:Makes sense... (Score:4, Informative)
60 here. I made friends on BBSes that I never would have had an opportunity to meet elsewhere, and those online relationships became the core of our in-person social life. Likewise I met a lady through a dialup chat service and we married. Even now nearly 40 years later we "date" online, each at our own computers in the same house, because her physical limitations prevent us from actually going out dancing, travelling, etc.
Technology is as good or evil as you make it. Used correctly, social media can enhance rather than replace the "real world", whatever that means.
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44 here. BBSes were a slight bit before my time. I made friends on forums and IRC that I still now speak with almost every day. Over the years I've met almost all of them in person. Some of my oldest and longest standing friends I met online and still know mostly in that capacity today.
It very much helped through the worst of the Covid lockdowns, having meaningful relationships with people where our primary method of interaction was not affected at all.
There's nothing wrong with socializing online. For me a
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BBSes were like the wild west frontier before settlers and cowboys...except if you went too wild the admin could out your identity, literally call or drive over to your house, or permanently ban you (unless you wanted to get a new phone number.)
Also, you lost your phone while busy on the BBS and it would take minutes to switch between them... plus people had to war dial to find phone numbers... (see 80s film, "War Games" which is almost relevant again.) Also, the only standard was ASCII (usa) anything else
Makes sense (Score:2)
People are generally a nuisance. Especially in large doses. Online, it's far easier to just turn someone off who becomes annoying.
And way more legal, too.
Meanwhile, in Gen-X land (Score:2)
Pshaw, been limiting my interactions with humanity to Online for decades now.
Fark the meat!
unpaid contributors rather than traditional media (Score:2)
The phone disease. (Score:1)
That almost sounds like (Score:1)
That almost sounds like - 52% of people under 42 spend more time socializing off line than online.
Easier for those who can't socialin person... (Score:2)
... like me who can't talk and hear well.