When I was a lad in Second Life Linden Lab used to publish statistics galore. They still make plenty of statistics available in terms of the economy, you can find those over at Tyche Shepherd’s Grid Survey site : http://gridsurvey.com/economy.php
However along with the economy stats Linden Lab used to publish statistics on age, gender, country of origin yadda yadda yadda. They stopped doing this some time ago. A report published in April 2008 by Janet Lo, Law student, University of Ottawa, commissioned by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada contains some statsics :
Age Of Users
- 13 – 17 (Teen Grid) – 0.96%
- 18-24 – 24.50%
- 25-34 – 35.43%
- 35-44 – 23.35%
- 45 or older – 15.25%
- Unknown – 0.51%
That’s quite a vast age range of users. Gender was also quite interesting :
Gender Of Users
- Male – 59.02%
- Female – 40.98%
I seem to recall seeing a statistic where the gender balance was a tad closer, something like 57% – 43% but I can’t find a reference to this. I’m not sure why Linden Lab stopped publishing these statistics, they were good talking points and in today’s climate where diversity is a big thing, they may well be interesting. However as Linden Lab’s published statistics were, well, statistics, many people argued that we were in lies, damned lies and statistics territory. However that’s part of the fun of statistics!
However the statistics were a point of fierce debate. Many people claimed that statistics such as age and gender were almost meaningless as people would provide inaccurate data during signup. This is something that is impossible to prove one way or the other, but people have been known to be economical with the truth when they signup to any platform that doesn’t require payment. I would hazard a guess people are far more likely to be economic with the truth regarding their age, rather than their gender.
Second Life has long had a reputation for being rather diverse, in terms of both its userbase and Linden Lab’s workforce, although I’ve never seen any reports regarding the demographics of Linden Lab’s workforce I have met enough Lindens of both genders to suggest that Linden Lab is quite a diverse place to work.
Whereas these statistics aren’t important in terms of operational functionality, they are useful in terms of exemplifying a platform that appeals to males and females alike. In many ways it’s a shame these statistics are no longer available.
I agree completely; I think it’s quite important for Linden Labs to give out some basic level of this information, and I’m baffled as to why they don’t make more of an effort to do that. I am thinking the only reason might be that it is presently skewed in some way that makes it clear that Second Life is used very heavily by one group or another, and that if that information were to become known, then SL WOULD be skewed permanently because “word would get around” and all of a sudden their audience would forever be “single women over 50”, or whatever.
You are so cynical 😉 You made a comment about the age before, I think you’re a tad wide of the mark but an older crowd with more female participants than a usual online world experience is certainly likely.
Yeah, I’m pretty cynical 😉 I’d be very willing to believe I was more than wide of the mark; I don’t think basing this on guessing and personal experience is a very useful way of going forward, but there’s nothing else to go on. The complete lack of information must be maddening for people who are trying to make business decisions about appealing to one or another demographic in SL. Anyway, thanks for keeping this topic in the public eye; maybe Linden Labs will see that people want this information.
In 2008 or 2009 when most of the SL stats began showing a decline in use, the Lab started restricting stats data. My assumption is our use of the stats was a negative thing for the Lab and created a negative feedback loop. They broke the loop.
Even more stats were shut down in 2011 when use patterns changed with the introduction of the mesh prim type. Rob said the stats post-mesh no longer accurately reflected actual user participation. Time spent designing for SL cannot be measured by the Lab. So, his position is understandable.
Whatever the reasons, we no longer have stats to give us an idea of what is happening.
There are always reasons not to distribute stats, I mean stats generally get argued about anyway. This actually links to your point that stats in the wild allow a negative or misrepresentation of the figures to go viral.
Some stats would be nice to see now and again but I can understand why the Lab decided to pull back.