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Kleanish t1_jdedf8h wrote

Reply to comment by SomethingMatter in The average TikTok user in the US is an adult 'well past college age,' CEO says by djJAMZ

With 150 million people it’s becomes very normalized and the average is closer to the median.

Can’t compare a sample of 10 to 150 million.

Yes the average and median are different but the median is still near whatever they said the average was.

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SomethingMatter t1_jdeinsm wrote

But those 150 million people would have a similar distribution. Lets say that the minimum age on TikTok is 12 and the highest age is 65. An average/mean age of 23 would have to include more people in the 12-23 block than the 23-65 block because the people in the upper end count "more". Populations that skew right (assuming age goes from a lower to a higher value) will always have a mean that is higher than the median (https://www.statology.org/left-skewed-vs-right-skewed/).

That is why the median is much more important because it tells us the skew of the data. The mean is bullshit in this case.

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Kleanish t1_jdeiuvs wrote

repeats first comment

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SomethingMatter t1_jdejiiu wrote

Like WTF? Do you even understand statistics? Do you understand skewed populations? 150 million people won't become a normalized population just because you think it should. For example, voters in the USA skew older. That's a fact. If you look at the number of people who vote and their age then it will not form a normalized population. It will skew left. It doesn't matter that there are 150 million people voting. That fact holds true.

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Kleanish t1_jdekbzc wrote

You’re right. My statement should read “more” normalized.

The difference in mean and average is not applicable to the discussion at hand. There is a difference, but, most likely, not enough to warrant a change in discussion. Aka the point still stands “users on TikTok are older than most think”

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SomethingMatter t1_jdelefh wrote

What does older in “users on TikTok are older than most think” mean? Older can refer to the majority (median) or average (mean). Most people think of it in terms of the first. TikTok used the mean for a reason, because it's lower than the median. If the data was skewed the other way around, they would have used the median. Hell, if the median user was past college age then they probably would have said that "there are more users past college age than younger".

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Kleanish t1_jdelobl wrote

It doesn’t matter though.

None of them; mode, median, or mean are close to the age of kids.

You are bringing up mute points

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SomethingMatter t1_jdemg85 wrote

> None of them; mode, median, or mean are close to the age of kids.

How can you know that? TikTok only gave the mean. They didn't give us the distribution or the median.

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Kleanish t1_jdes0jb wrote

I don't. Its very unlikely with the age they gave and the total population of users.

Like I said in the first comment, with a sample 10 or 20, its to be expected the median and average would vary a lot.

It is very unlikely, given the age they provided of the average, the median would stoop as low as a kid's age, under 13, or even under 16.

Here

Disclaimer: that is monthly active users. Though the second theory, while total number of users will be different than this graph, I imagine that the older the person is, the less likely they will continue using the app, or use it less often per month. As in monthly active users will skew lower in age than the total number of users.

So then maybe at one point in time, lets say hourly, the age of active users on TikTok may be very low.

​

See how nuanced we are getting?

Itll never be one data point. With how big TikTok is, single data points lose value.

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SomethingMatter t1_jdey99p wrote

I agree with this. We can see the skew from that graph but it depends what data points we look at. Daily users probably skew younger than monthly or total users. I also agree that I don't think the median would get as low as 16 years but even having half of your users under 18 isn't a good sign.

That's why I said the claim in the first place is bullshit. Obviously TikTok will pick the best data points to make their argument. They have all of the data and can cheery pick something to make their case.

Ironically, this is probably far less relevant than the algorithms that they use to push content to people. For example, anyone under 14 in China can't use TikTok for more than 40 minutes per day but that restriction doesn't exist here. And those users are also shown different content (educational) instead of the regular content. So the algorithm in China for youth is different from the algorithm for youth here.

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