
Hacker News is 44% 18-24 year olds, 77% male - luigi
http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/08/21/report-social-network-demographics-in-2012/
======
olalonde
This poll from a year ago regarding age is probably more representative:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2175588>

Results pasted here:

    
    
        Age    Points
        ---    ------
        0-10   39 (0.6%)
        11-15  32 (0.5%)
        16-20  462 (7.5%)
        21-25  1620 (26.4%)
        26-30  1945 (31.6%)
        31-35  1049 (17.1%)
        36-40  488 (7.9%)
        41-45  269 (4.4%)
        46-50  117 (1.9%)
        51-55  54 (0.9%)
        56-60  35 (0.6%)
        61-65  19 (0.3%)
        66+    19 (0.3%)
    

edit: Found a male/female poll here from ~3 years ago:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=591309>. Another age poll from ~3 years
ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=517039>

    
    
        Gender  Points
        ------  ------
        Male    1375 (95%)
        Female  71 (5%)

~~~
sbierwagen
39 people who are either lying or accidentally clicked on the first option.

~~~
rytis
There are few on HN that claim they started programming at the age of 3 to 8.
I'm guessing it's either them or their offsprings...

On a more serious note, does anyone still trust online survey results?

~~~
bad_user
In my opinion starting programming at a young age is almost orthogonal to
being interested in HN links and discussions from a young age, mostly because
kids have other interests than adults, even if they like programming.

I'm not saying that there aren't any children reading HN btw.

~~~
conradev
I'm fifteen and have been reading HN for more than a year now, and I would
have to agree. The content on HN is interesting for those who intend to make a
career out of technology, not necessarily those who program solely because
it's fun.

------
tokenadult
Where is the information about the methodology of the survey?

The submitted article says the "survey" is based on DoubleClick Ad Planner,

[https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLogin?service=branding...](https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLogin?service=branding&passive=1209600&continue=https://www.google.com/adplanner/&followup=https://www.google.com/adplanner/&ltmpl=adplanner&authuser=0)

a Google service, but it's not explained how DoubleClick knows about (for
example) users who habitually block cookies and the like, and anyway how does
DoubleClick match its data sources with the overall population that uses
Hacker News? What is the evidence that the headline figure is anything other
than a wild-ass guess?

~~~
magicalist
I've never heard of it before, but I did find this:
[http://support.google.com/adplanner/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...](http://support.google.com/adplanner/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=175532)

I'm sure the process is fraught with errors, of course, but there does seem to
be data to feed the model and data to serve as a test set. The easy thing
about targeting ads with demographic data like this (unlike trying to make
statistically-accurate statements about demographic data like this), is that
if a person responds to some types of ads like a 45-year-old scuba instructor
or whatever, it doesn't matter if they really are any of those things.

------
SlipperySlope
Just how much of an outlier is a 61 year old male? No pixels on the graph for
anyone over 54!

Learning new stuff, e.g. writing Android & iOS apps, keeps the mind young,
much like lifting weights and aerobics keeps the body young ...

~~~
astrodust
Considering the average 60+ year old male still thinks Facebook is about the
entire extent of the internet apart from online banking and Amazon, yes.

The only 50+ developers are those that have _always_ been developers.

~~~
waterlesscloud
That's a pretty out-of-touch statement.

The Web has been around 20 years now. There's plenty of 60+ years olds in many
far-reaching corners.

Smart startups would be thinking about that.

~~~
astrodust
What I mean is that there aren't many 60+ year old people that think "Hey, you
know what, I'm going to develop an Android application." It just doesn't come
up.

The adoption rate of technology is always slower in older age groups. The way
technology is used between 20-40 and 40-60 is enormous. Between 40-60 and
60-80 is even more dramatic.

~~~
lutusp
> What I mean is that there aren't many 60+ year old people that think "Hey,
> you know what, I'm going to develop an Android application." It just doesn't
> come up.

Only because you're so sure of yourself, I have to correct you.

1\. I'm 67. Here's my Wikipedia page:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Lutus>

2\. Here is a list of my recent Android apps:
[https://play.google.com/store/search?q=paul+lutus&c=apps](https://play.google.com/store/search?q=paul+lutus&c=apps)

3\. I was probably programming before you were born:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Writer>

Have a nice day.

~~~
Volpe
Aren't you proving the parents point? He was saying the only 60+ developers
have always been developers...

Also, having a wikipedia page that you wrote yourself, doesn't really say
anything...

~~~
lutusp
> Also, having a wikipedia page that you wrote yourself, doesn't really say
> anything...

I didn't write the Wikipedia page. If you think otherwise, locate evidence to
the contrary, like a responsible adult. And if you cannot locate evidence to
the contrary, ask yourself whether you really want to go on record saying what
you have just said about a named person.

~~~
nacker
Your personal website is fascinating! Particularly the anti-psychology and
Aspergers material. This piece was extremely well written and intructive:

<http://arachnoid.com/psychology/aspergers.php>

~~~
lutusp
> This piece was extremely well written and intructive:

> <http://arachnoid.com/psychology/aspergers.php>

Thanks, but my latest article is better IMHO, as well as more up-to-date:

<http://arachnoid.com/trouble_with_psychology>

Thanks again for your support.

~~~
nacker
I enjoyed the personal story, it was quite gripping!

Inspired by "Broca's Brain" by Carl Sagan, I made it halfway through medical
school with the intention of being a psychiatrist, before I finally realized
that, on closer examination, psychiatry was not only a scam, but actually
pernicious, repressive and evil!

------
quaunaut
This honestly makes me pretty curious. I thought the 25-34 range would be
larger, especially compared to other sites that seem to have a much less
professional atmosphere(Reddit, etc).

Hacker News certainly isn't some bastion of intelligent thought and discourse,
but it's definitely above average in that, which makes me wonder if the 18-24
year olds are just keeping quiet in the comments, if they're really that
smart, or if I'm actually a lot less mature/intelligent than I thought.

~~~
sbierwagen
I'm 23. I just avoid being as flagrant of an asshole here as I am on 4chan.

~~~
sliverstorm
^ This is an important effect, IMO. I find people will tend to mimic the
accepted mode of communication for that channel.

------
oenoneNY
Wait wait wait. I (along with every single other female programmer I know)
show up as a male on google's Ad Planner. If the only category they give you
is "Computers & Hardware", then you are assumed to be a man. Of course it is
going to think most of hacker news is male.

------
dangrossman
I did my own little analysis of Hacker News readers based on the ~20,000 of
you that visited my blog recently:

[http://www.dangrossman.info/2012/08/21/what-hacker-news-
user...](http://www.dangrossman.info/2012/08/21/what-hacker-news-users-use/)

Of course, I didn't survey people or have access to demographic profiles from
other sites, so it's just a breakdown of systems. To summarize, the average HN
reader runs Chrome 21 on a pre-Retina MacBook.

~~~
duaneb
Yes, but also remember that you're not measuring HN readers, you're measuring
HN readers who thought your link was interesting. There are many (popular)
links I don't click.

~~~
dsrguru
Did you click Dan's?

~~~
duaneb
No, I don't click web-oriented technology links. I'm generally more of a
systems guy, and I find user interfaces rather boring. I suspect most people
are like me (in finding SOME aspect of HN boring/irrelevant to their
interests).

------
dfc
How does doubleclick have demographic data for HN? I would love to be able to
see how doublieclick defines me demographically.

~~~
abrahamsen
Presuming it is the same as Google Ads:

<https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads/onweb/>

~~~
dfc
Presumin what? That page says I've opted out.

------
MetallicCloud
What I found most disturbing was that most people who visit Hi5 are people in
the 25 - 34 age group. That was before I realised it is _not_ a website
dedicated to the Australian TV show for small children.

------
Zenst
99.99999% of surveys upon social userbase outlets fashion towards 50% of all
users being under 24 year's of age. My reasearch for this is based upon a
finger in the air and no other hard facts beyond recalling a recent G+ survey.

Given this what % of user lie about there age (sexual equality has led males
to stay 21 for longer), gender etc. What % keep it private. Do lurkers count
and many other details that distract from the reliability % of any result.

You never know, maybe in 100 years or so people might look at % based surveys
as people most look upon horoscopes today.

I would also perhaps argue that any age based grouping in anything other than
age itself is ignoring the fact that some people do and can act older or
younger than their actual age on many levels. It is perhaps the definition of
the areana that the survey is based upon that should be weighted against the
user. If somebody had written a program to analyis users posts to guage there
age and gender to then come up with some %, then that would of been Hacker
News.

------
stitchy
I'm interested in what type of articles the 18-24 year olds submit/read versus
other age groups. For instance, I'm in the 25-34 age range, and I almost never
care about the JavaScript, CoffeeScript, or other client-side language
articles. I tend to read the software methodology, software tool tips/tricks,
and gee-wiz-look-how-fast-tech-is-moving articles.

------
pixelbath
I find it interesting that DoubleClick (Google) claims to have accurate data
about HN's demographics when HN doesn't use ads or the DoubleClick network.

I've seen a few people mention "tracking cookies" that DoubleClick leaves on
your machine. Without something on a HN page serving content from an ad
network page, cookies won't work that way.

------
brudgers
At first I thought this had to be flat out wrong.

Then I realized that the typical HN'er probably doesn't post many comments,
and even fewer post comments which make me curious enough to look at their
profile.

What tends to make me look at someone's profile is to see if there is a basis
for their opinion in terms of experience. My image of an HN'er probably biased
in favor of people who post good insightful comments and not necessarily
someone who still just clicks on links.

------
rdl
I wonder how different the stats are for casual users (browsing headlines once
or twice a month), people who read all the interesting links on the frontpage,
those who read comments, those who sometimes comment, and those who routinely
comment.

I can only thing of a few female commenters. zero on
<http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders> right?

~~~
roguecoder
The leaders were probably commenting 3 years ago when the site was, from other
stats on this page, 95% male. I see quite a few women who regularly comment:
DaniFong, Dove and tessr, off the top of my head. Never mind those that don't
mention gender or IRL identity, or have user names that are read as male.

"I don't notice any women here" =/= "There are no women here".

------
belorn
Whats the accuracy of those numbers? In research, statistics are normally
followed by a accuracy estimation.

------
dlokshin
How do these compare with the general world population with an internet
connection?

------
foidman
Hacker News is 44% 18-24 year olds, 77% male

And they hate America and Jesus.

------
pawelwentpawel
Orkut statistics are quite interesting - most of the people are 24-34, then
35-44 group is relatively small and 45-54 is much bigger.

I wonder how accurate this data is.

~~~
justincormack
Given that it uses US data and Orkut is not used much in the US, probably not
accurate at all. You need the Brazilian stats...

------
turingbook
Hard to believe it. Younger than MySpace? And there are so many old people on
Facebook?

------
smackfu
Remember that any external analytics can only report on viewers, not members.

------
zeet2020
i think the survey result are amazing more and more young people getting
interested in tech oriented website.

more older people moving towards social networking

------
lothie
So utterly against the stream...heh

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razdjp
That explains a lot.

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shirro
That is a depressing statistic.

------
cubsink
When it said 23% girls I knew that they based their information on crappy data
that isn't representative.

~~~
ChrisAnn
Why?

~~~
pca
Take a look at the HN circle on Google+. That's definitely not just 77% male.

~~~
sp332
Neither is Google+. It's not representative of anything.

------
Danski
Wow there's 13% girls on HN?

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phao
23% female?!!!!!!!!!!!!!

------
billsix
Don't care about demographics on HN

