>I've noticed something about subreddits that focus on lifestyle design and center around advice: they all start to converge on fairly narrow groupthink.
To me, this is a novel insight, thanks :) I have been wondering what has been causing my frustration towards these kind of subreddits. But this makes it clear that the problem is a lack of actual discussion and no challenges made against the assumptions of the in-group.
I have noticed this is a broad trend on a lot of the internet; the internet has a lot of data, but most of that data is repeated a lot. If you want new and interesting information you often have to look elsewhere (e.g. books).
A particularly annoying example to me is the ausfinance subreddit which is obsessed with a housing market crash that they seem to think will definitely happen tomorrow. Anything pointing in that direction immediately gets extrapolated as the horseman of the Australian housing market apocalypse, nevermind the fact it was trending the opposite direction yesterday.
I find myself looking things up on the internet a lot, and it occurs to me as a surprise to realize a lot of articles on "how to X" or "what causes Y" contain no real content at all.
Why? Because all of those articles are written by people paid a small amount of money to do quick research and write something in less than half a day. Most of them probably even haven't even read a single book on the subject.
It's so much better to read about something and get that broadband information, to encounter an obscure fact that sheds new light on something or makes the whole thing click.
The most important thing I've done for myself recently is to start breaking away from the social streams by doing my own aggregation with Fraidycat. Besides letting me assemble a lot of sources, it dampens the noise because it doesn't let a single feed drown out the rest: that Twitter account that can't stop shitposting every two seconds in between the real insights is thus tamed.
And so there's a distinct "lack of addictive qualities" when I open it, followed by some very rewarding content. It does take a little time to put together but it helps that we have social streams now to sample from, since so many of them ultimately link to a slower-moving source of real content like a personal blog.
There are challenges to the groupthink. They are downvoted into oblivion.
For particular groups, where it is a place to discuss things amongst themselves, that's defensible, but in r/news, r/politics? Today, in r/technology of all places, there were some utterly disgusting hate being spewed because Ivanka Trump is going to CES for some reason.
To me, this is a novel insight, thanks :) I have been wondering what has been causing my frustration towards these kind of subreddits. But this makes it clear that the problem is a lack of actual discussion and no challenges made against the assumptions of the in-group.
I have noticed this is a broad trend on a lot of the internet; the internet has a lot of data, but most of that data is repeated a lot. If you want new and interesting information you often have to look elsewhere (e.g. books).
A particularly annoying example to me is the ausfinance subreddit which is obsessed with a housing market crash that they seem to think will definitely happen tomorrow. Anything pointing in that direction immediately gets extrapolated as the horseman of the Australian housing market apocalypse, nevermind the fact it was trending the opposite direction yesterday.