In a discussion titled How do mobile members behave on Discourse?, users explore how mobile usage affects participation. jimkleiber observes that mobile users may contribute less due to typing fatigue, especially with paragraph-heavy topics, and asks whether mobile users tend to lurk, post short replies, or prefer chat. Stephen notes behavior varies by demographic and subject matter — many switch to desktop for longer replies, while younger users may default to mobile. maiki confirms reading more and replying later from a non-mobile device for better typing and reference tools. merefield reports mobile views on their forum are often under 50%, suggesting desktop still dominates. jimkleiber proposes a feature to publicly indicate whether a post was made via desktop or mobile — akin to “Sent from my iPhone” — to manage expectations around brevity or typos. merefield clarifies this would require a plugin, as device origin isn’t tracked in the Post model. jimkleiber further muses whether Discourse should encourage shorter posts to lower the barrier for mobile users. Stephen questions whether Discourse is ideal if users primarily post short, ephemeral content. jimkleiber counters that meaningful dialogue can still occur in short, interactive exchanges — suggesting a shift in expectations rather than platform choice.
This got me thinking about how I imagine many of my members will be using mobile first, if not mobile only, and how I worry they won’t contribute much to topics. I think I’ve seen in my own behavior that when topics tend to be more paragraph based, I get tired of typing on my phone and therefore don’t respond.
I’m curious for those who have members that mostly use their phones to access Discourse, how do you think that affects their behavior on the platform?
Do they lurk more? Still write long topics? Short ones? Mostly just like things? Do they use the chat instead? Do they come and go?
Any insights you can provide may really help better shape my expectations.
I think it really depends on demographic and subject matter above all else.
I check in here on Meta mostly on mobile, but move to my laptop whenever I need to make a lengthier response. I’ve been known to swap device and add to initially short cell-based responses from my desktop. Younger users OTOH are typically more inclined to use the cellphones by default.
Chat applications encourage shorter more frequent responses, Discourse includes specific tools and plugins to discourage such behavior if you deem them undesirable.
I don’t know what others do, but I read more, write less. Or rather, I bookmark items to reply to when I’m at a non-mobile device; full keyboards and tabs for reference/links are where it’s at!
I’m wondering how hard it would be to implement (and useful) to show publicly who is posting by desktop vs mobile. Almost like a Discourse version of “Sent from my iPhone” to give others the awareness of why the message may be brief and/or include typos.
Would anyone find such a component useful? And any idea if it would be easy to make as a theme component?
Hmm, this makes me curious about doing the opposite and discouraging longer posts, as I know that the longer the post is that I see on Discourse, the more hesitant I can feel to reply by phone.
I’d agree if the posts are meant to be more ephemeral then maybe Discourse (topics, maybe not the chat) might not be a good fit.
However, I think great discussion and dialogue can happen in shorter entries, just may lead to a more interactive, back-and-forth discussion than with longer entries.
