This seems very anecdotal. It would be interesting to see some numbers on how different age groups interact with different UI types.
In my experience, most people prefer “card” view type interfaces. Most popular sites I can think of at the top of my head are like this. Instagram shows you a picture. Facebook you default see a post until it is truncated. New Reddit is like this as well. Twitter shows just a small post, and you can view threads that way too.
Even old sites that had list views tended to get more popular when you get a card view, like Reddit.
I’m not sure if it’s generational.
But, perhaps the difference is generational. I haven’t spoken to very many people about this, but what I have noticed is a shift over time from menus to feeds on the internet. Forums are dying. Users don’t want to scroll search results, they want an AI to just give them the answer. And the difference seems to be generational. Perhaps informed by our early experiences with online platforms. It certainly cannot be an absolute distinction, but a correlation seems evident from the state of the world.
Extrapolates a distinction between number of questions and answer based on age from a tiny data set, acknowleeges large scale changes over time that applies to all ages, offhandedly mentions the actual reason (early experiences with the internet), then goes back to random speculation.
What a terribly incoherent article. Capitalizing ‘Mine’ made it a struggle. Why didn’t they capitalize ‘ours’ for consistency? If I was tha author I would assume it was because of generational self centeredness or something, because everything needs to be generational conflict!
What I didn’t expect was what My friend said after making a Lemmy account on her chosen website — “I don’t like it because it looks like Old Reddit. I have to click on each post to view it”.
Sometimes people tell you something and it just ends a friendship…
I’m continually surprised by how incurious people are in general. One of the first things I did when I explored Lemmy was click on the weird “+” button next to post titles, because I wanted to know what it did. And then I checked the settings to see what I could tweak.
People don’t seem to do shit like this, and it baffles me.
I think this is based on the way short form video has taken over as being what having-the-TV-on-in-the-background was for the baby boomers. And click-then-go-back is too complex an interaction for “noise” while having your brain off, while swiping from meaningless clip to meaningless clip in shorts or tiktok works.
When Lemmy came around, I didn’t stop using Reddit.
steps aside to dodge rotten tomato
I saw a new place to go visit and explore, and I haven’t been given a reason to leave. I actually post more here than Reddit because the conversations feel more genuine, but I still browse both. No reason not to.
this is dumb, you still have to parse info either method of interacting with the site, its just slightly diffrent, some people can just filter out info they care less about a little better. if anything has to do with the so called divide between generations (i always call bullshit on this, people are far to complex to be put in these boxes) it may have to do with how people first started interacting with the internet. people who have been interacting with the internet for longer may be more accustomed to the fourm style of website, where as people who started using the internet on their phone may be more accustomed to the app style layout. it mostly boils down to learned ways of interacting in online spaces, not how old you are in my opinion.
I don’t agree at all with the author’s approach. I’m a millennial and I came to Reddit around 2019-2020, using it a lot since the pandemic, I prefer the new reddit a thousand times. It’s not a question of interpreting the site as questions, it seems like a nonsense to me. It’s a matter of making everything more visual, I don’t stop to read the title, the community or the author, at a glance I see the vast majority of the post, if I consider it I see the rest of the information, most of the time I ignore the information, because I don’t care.
I would like to remind you that Instagram (the example given in the article) is mostly used by millennials.
Because you’re primarily looking at image posts…
Older people, 30-40s grew up when bandwidth was a limiter, we’re used to having to decide if an image is worth the bandwidth.
We just grew up with vastly different internets.
You all could just load a bunch of stuff and ignore what you didn’t want. We’re stuck in the mindset that bandwidth matters, so a bunch of stupid memes we aren’t interested taking up bandwidth and screen real estate just feels off.
It feels less like it’s being “offered” and more like it’s being shoved down our throats.
Bandwidth is going to be the new “turn off the lights when you leave” for the Oregon Trail generation. In our heads we still need to be cognizant of how much we’re using, even tho subsequent generations never seem to think about it. They’ve just never had to.
Happens to every generation in some way or another.
I am 38 years old, I remember perfectly when downloading a single song could easily take a week, porn was exclusively photos because online videos were unimaginable and streaming hadn’t even been invented yet. I don’t understand why you’re still worried about that right now, photos, videos, games, movies, everything moves online in a matter of seconds, downloading at +10Mb/s on emule is today normal. I have gotten used to it normally.
Anytime someone is generalizing a group like a generation…
It’s usually understood that exceptions exist.
Ok, I might be the exception, but as I said before, Instagram has its main user base among people of my generation. I don’t think those users care about bandwidth at any level.
Yeah, I’m not sure this is the generational thing that the author is trying to make it out to be. It seems to me like one of those things that leans on personal preference.
The author’s sample for the behavior of generations is a few anecdotes from personal friends. How many friends does a person have, 3, or 30, or 300? That means n is pretty small when there’s something like 3 billion mellenials
Agreed, this seems more like a preference shaped by which layout you’re used to. That would make it somewhat generational as younger users wouldn’t be starting with the old layout, but some older users would also be affected if they started after the new layout became the default.
To add another anecdote, I’m Gen Z but started using Reddit 12 years ago. I prefer the old layout on desktop and even use mlmym to get a similar layout for Lemmy, but I prefer card layouts on mobile. I dislike the new layout due to what I would consider as excessive whitespace and the fact that it shows fewer comments by default, but I want to see image posts inline and use “Show Images” from RES for that.
Same, millennial here and I massively prefer card view over having to click again. Similarly I want a Mastodon interface in which links are shown as link preview cards.
Yes, a link without a preview is unpleasant
Something I hadn’t considered to possibly be generational. When I was on Reddit, it was always old Reddit. I can’t imagine anyone using card view, I thought maybe that existed for iPads or devices with large screens.
I also don’t see appeal in instagram or TikTok like the author though as well.
I don’t necessarily get the consideration of “decision fatigue”. If you chose not to decide you still have made a choice. The choice then of allowing the app to just show you whatever can’t really be put on decision fatigue in my opinion.
Card view is great for porn. Otherwise, yeah, old Reddit is the better layout.
I haven’t spoken to very many people about this
Obviously not. I, a millennial prefer the “new” design. I can subscribe to communities and subreddits with already is a good way to filter content. I don’t have to look at everything that gets thrown at me. Also I do not have to be scared there is a hidden ad somewhere inbetween like when using Instagram or whatever.
I also really liked the forums from the bronze age, but those were text-based at the post level, while Lemmy also supports images and links (including thumbnails).
Without seeing actual statistics, both accounts are anecdotal. But it’s my experience that I have had a lot less interaction of people who prefer new Reddit and a lot more with people who prefer old Reddit. Many Lemmy instances host old Reddit inspired front ends. I’m not aware of a single front end for Lemmy that strives to emulate new Reddit
I think Voyager is one of the most popular Lemmy web frontends. I haven’t used reddit for a long time but it seems to be more similar to the new than old design… I honestly don’t talk about reddit designs with people in the real world
To be fair I don’t talk about Reddit/Lemmy front ends with anyone except in meta discussions as well.
I used Apollo/use Voyager as well, my experience in the early days after the API migration on the voyager community was that most people used the compact view and card view was more for iPad usage
I use Voyager, but I have it set to compact view.
In My opinion, the best design is usually one that gives users a choice in the design.
