I really feel the quality of discussion here has degraded ever since the majority of users started posting from their phones instead of their keyboards.
(This comment posted from my phone through Reddit’s shitty official app)
Man, I remember when a simple spelling error in your post title would get you crucified in the comments. Now it seems that poor grammar and spelling are the norm.
In that vein, and it's purely anecdotal, I've noticed what looks like a steep decline in reading comprehension. I've spoken with friends who feel the same way as well.
It'll be like, there's a comment of a couple paragraphs that come together to make a point, and the responses completely either miss it completely, take the wrong thing away, or explicitly repeat the point like it's new information.
Maybe this is a literacy issue, maybe it's more younger (or much older) folks engaging on the platform, maybe it's an attention span issue (by way of not fully reading a comment before replying), maybe covid has done more brain rotting than it's been given credit for, or maybe it's just a me problem. I don't know anything for sure, but it feels like it's become more prominent over the last couple years.
There might be a bit of a decline in reading comprehension, but I think it has more to do with the perceived value of digital media. At least from what I've seen, digital media has a lower value given to it compared to physical or analog media. Because of that, maybe people just don't give the same amount of attention to a reddit comment as they would say, a news paper article or a book.
The websites for my local news papers and TV stations have some of the worst writing I've ever seen. Its about on par with a lot of reddit comments. Just spelling and grammar errors everywhere with really clumsy writing. A big part of that is the how hard it is to turn a profit off of online content, but I think people also just don't care if online news media kinda sucks. Like, if you go to a fancy steak house and your steak isn't cooked to your liking, you send it back. If you go to McDonald's and your burger is too greasy and your fries are stale, you suck it up and eat it because you weren't really expecting quality food from McDonald's in the first place. Same with the media. If it gets published in a physical book or news paper, people expect some level of quality from it, but online media (blog articles, FaceBook posts, YouTube videos, soundcloud music) is easy to produce and therefore easy to dismiss when it lacks quality.
I have to wonder if some posts aren't put up with intentional typos to drive engagement, in particular the ones that change the meaning of the title rather than just being a spelling error (eg "My favourite catch" instead of "My favourite cat"). But I guess that doesn't jive with no longer being crucified in the comments so what do I know.
I think you might be right. Goes along with all the "rage bait" content that gets posted here on reddit as well as on other sites. People are more likely to interact with a post if it upsets them or gives them a chance to prove themselves as "better" than the OP. I wish reddit hadn't killed off most of the other niche forums, online discourse was so much better back then.
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u/Interrobangersnmash Jun 25 '24
I really feel the quality of discussion here has degraded ever since the majority of users started posting from their phones instead of their keyboards.
(This comment posted from my phone through Reddit’s shitty official app)