Comment by Barrin92

13 days ago

>remaining customers of a service that is actively hostile against them

because that's not how they view it. For most Gen Z users and younger their digital identity already is their identity and they have no problem verifying it because the idea of being anonymous on a social network defeats the purpose of being there in the first place.

6 comments

Barrin92

areoform 13 days ago

Universalising any group is dangerous, but this isn't true for even the least informed young people I know.

They grew up being watched. They know what these data harvesting operations are and how dangerous this is. They've got front row seats to the dystopia. The difference is that they can't / couldn't do anything about it.

They think the world is broken and that you broke it. They're pissed off. And powerless. Not a good combination

Even McKinsey is now reporting on it,

   Some Gen Zers push back on a lack of privacy, creating online subcultures that fantasize about anonymity: the pastoral “cottagecore” aesthetic, inspired by tiny cabins and homegrown greens, was one of Gen Z’s first major trends. 
   
   Some opt out; the New York Times recently reported on a group of self-described Luddite teens who found community by kicking smart devices in favor of the humble flip phone. 
   
   Even if you don’t go that far, many young people are veering away from “everyone knows everything” social media to curate a close group of friends and carefully monitor how much they put online.

https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/email/genz/2023/01...

Barrin92 13 days ago
sorry but the source for the wave of discontent is... a new york times op-ed on kids with flip phones? How many of them are there? I think universalizing is appropriate because unlike previous generations there isn't even a meaningful counter-culture. Even the luddites in all likelihood get more traction as a story on Instagram than the actual thing, where do you think they go to get their cottage core fix? I haven't seen a resurgence in self-hosted blogs. The sentence "cottage core is a major trend" is in itself hilarious. Where was it trending?
Looking at the numbers that TikTok or Meta are doing I think you can unequivocally say that the vast majority of young people do not care, at all, the 'luddite teen' is the digital version of, and about as real, as the Gen Z 'trad wife'.
If you're going to a CCC event you're much more likely to see resistance in the form of someone like Cory Doctorow, an actually angry middle aged guy who to my knowledge has not converted to flip phone cottage core to stick it to the man.
- Eisenstein 12 days ago
  
  If they are removing themselves from the places you would normally look for people, how do you plan to find them? Why would they go anywhere you are going? They don't want to hang out with angry middle aged guys.
  
  2 replies →
- abanana 12 days ago
  
  > How many of them are there?
  Indeed, this reads as a case of somebody forgetting that the news doesn't report what's absolutely normal to everybody. It reports what's unusual. (Plus all the articles that misrepresent people's opinions either deliberately for clicks, or accidentally through lack of understanding, sometimes due to being given a quota of articles to rush out per day.)
  Perhaps the universalizing mistake is going a little bit in both directions here.
  There's a huge current trend where people love to tar an entire generation with the same brush. When a person a generation or more removed (in either direction) says something we personally disagree with, it's become the norm to put down that entire generation as though they share the same viewpoint. It's a very unfortunate trend IMO because it often comes across as arrogant and/or patronising.