There are various subreddits where young people ask for advice and other young people with no experience are giving advice that might influence others negatively.
Otherwise, Reddit is great for technical stuff and niche community communication.
(Or a bot)
If you move through the site with that understanding - and personally, using the old interface - it can still be bearable.
I’m not the biggest fan of the company itself these days and I hold out hope that something else can take off, but I’ve not been impressed so far.
Nowadays the average age is high school, and probably trending to grade school
These are the people who are influencing the Google search user at large now.
We’re fucked
Have you ever seen one of the site surveys that subreddits typically do? The median age is almost always above college graduation (22 years old), at least for the subs I frequent. I could see the front page subs having a median in college age (18-22), but I'd be really surprised if it was below 18.
When I created my account more than a decade ago, I felt most people knew more than I did about the world. Now almost in my 40s, and there is the definite feeling that the average redditor you're replying to is a white, 16 year old American boy. The apex of civilisation indeed.
Though the original definition seems to be about ISPs giving unfettered Usenet access in 1993, causing a similar flood of newbies everywhere.
I've yet to see a relationships advice thread where the top comment isn't "get divorced immediately"
Which is scary, because these people are taking OP's comment at face value and only hearing one side of the story.
Slashdot was in many ways way ahead of their time. I think Reddit (and even HN) could benefit from this kind of check/balance.
I used to believe this but its becoming clear to me that for just about every subbreddit for my different niche interests, a common theme emerges of a dogma endorsed by the community. This might be a concept, an idea, a tool, something sold, something not sold, but whatever it is, the community latches on it hard and doesn't let go. If you offer different experiences to the contrary of the dogma of the day people either ignore you at best or downvote and get combative.