Important LJ Meme

[sraun]

LiveJournal is under the assumption that the bulk of the user base are18 year old girls. Thus there is the addition of features aimed at 18year old girls.

Things like nudge, and advertisements and the like.

Well.The statistics say that the bulk of the users are 18 years old because the older users don't list ages. After all, the older people get, the less likely they are to divulge their age. There is a big difference between 18 and 16 and 21. Between 35 and 39? Not nearly so much.

So:Help correct the demographics. Go to http://www.livejournal.com/manage/profile/and specify your full DOB, including your year of birth. If you don't want it displayed on your profile for everyone to see, uncheck the box that says " Show your birthday to other users".

Thats it. Three ticky boxes and LJ realizes that another adult is on board.

PS: Remember how many of you have multiple journals? Might be time to update them all. And pass this on. It's important.

ETA: I note that over half of my friends list doesn't have a year listed for their age. And very few of you are 16-18 years old!

Comments

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

Mine's already listed. But then I don't care if the world knows my age - not much point hiding it I think.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

"Nudge"? Do I want to know what Nudge is?

I might also speculate that 18 is an age younger Lj users might want to show.

[jbru.livejournal.com]

If a friend hasn't updated in a while, you can go to their profile page and "nudge" them so they get sent a note to prompt them to update. I stumbled upon it the other day.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

I tried to nudge you, but you've posted recently. No, I'm not going to give you a gift, either.

And I have no memories. I feel so... so... March 05...

What's Wrong With Me?

[davidschroth.livejournal.com]

Not only do I list my birth date, but I use my real name as well :-)

Re: What's Wrong With Me?

[pgdudda.livejournal.com]

I know! The sheer horror of it! Aaaah!

;-)

Re: What's Wrong With Me?

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

I used my real name, but left the year blank under DOB. Ever since I passed 2000 years I've been a bit sensitive.

Re: What's Wrong With Me?

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Round down.

Re: What's Wrong With Me?

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Same here. I don't care who knows how old I am, if asked I have to do the math to figure it out. I'll probably have a party every 100 years or so to mark the really big round numbers :-)
As far as real names, I'm not sure what the point of pseudonyms are. If people didn't know who I was, they would probably never read my journal, and what would be the point of having one. And if they do, what's the point of a pseudonym? I suppose there's a demographic (teenagers, gee, what are we talking about?) that post things that most of us wouldn't talk about in public, and for that perhaps they should use a pseudonym.

Re: What's Wrong With Me?

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

Well, for me, I have a non-standard sexuality, which I discuss on my blog, so I don't really want my boss to google my name and find a bit more information about me than what I'm willing to give.

Also, I like to bitch about work as well (without any readily-identifable information), and I'd rather that my employers didn't get confused about the ethical quandaries of staff members blogging about their company occasionally (I know of cases where people have been fired, even though the company wasn't identifiable in their blogs).

So, there you go, a couple of reasons for anonymity for us grown-ups. :-)

Re: What's Wrong With Me?

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

Me too.

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

I had listed my year. It is the month and day I leave off :<).

[rocalisa.livejournal.com]

Did it and passed it on. I'm long past caring if people know how old I am.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

I've had my birthdate listed from the start.

[kosmickitten.livejournal.com]

Um . . . Dad . . . you don't have any friends 16-18 years old . . .

[sraun]

Haven't you ever heard of sarcasm? Don't you know me that well by now?

FYI, weirdchic862 is 15.

[laurel]

Don't forget to sign the petition, too.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

But the bulk of their user base are teenage girls.

B

[sraun]

Where does that statistic come from? Is there somewhere a statistic that says 'there are 300 million journals, and 180 million claim to teenage girls'?

OK, I did some checking - at http://www.livejournal.com/stats.bml it shows a nice curve centered on ages 18 & 19. But there's no entry for 'data not given'. A quick check shows that their age data adds up to not quite 4 million of out almost 10.5 million journals - there's an awful lot of room to move the peak or change the shape of the curve there!

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Have fun.

B

[hornedhopper.livejournal.com]

I don't list my birth year, not because I don't want to acknowledge that I am just over the half-century mark, but because I am paranoid of identity theft from people NOT my friends who might be scrolling through the user info trolling for same. Same reason I don't have my schools listed.