Yeah, no kidding with that reddit one, every time I go there I feel like everyone is just in constant fear or anger, especially going to subreddits for my city/state.
I've near completely stopped using it due to this. Now I just spend way too much time on YouTube instead. It may be a terrible waste of time, but at least it's less angry and fearful.
Regional subs are the worst, for whatever reason. My theory is it's because they bring together people with nothing in common besides their geographic location.
Even subs that should be neutral, fun or supportive have attitude problems. One about a game I'm playing, for instance, consists mainly of dramatic complaints with a feeling of impending doom.
Topic Subreddits tend to be joyful, but there are things that can turn communities very toxic. It could be the demographic the topic appeals to. It could be that some moderation decision for the subreddit is festering and creating a lot of hurt feelings. It could be that there's some underlying issue that the community is uncomfortable with, or divisive, and a loud minority are dominating the discussion.
I have two examples of this from otherwise extremely positive communities. /r/factorio and /r/satisfactory (same genra, but I like this genre)
/r/factorio initially had no issue with self promotion of videos and series. This caused a ton of consternation and all kinds of other subjects turned very very negative. Moderators created another subreddit dedicated for self promotion of series, and the community stayed angry about everything for about 2 months, before things regressed to /r/factorio's mean, which was very positive.
I saw a similar thing happen in /r/satisfactory. Before the game was released people on the subreddit had nothing to talk about for the most part, and satisfactory announced that it was going to be epic exclusive for 6 months before release. Given that many people really hated Epic, and because we didn't actually get to play the game, anything that didn't talk about the Epic exclusivity, was subject to the conversation. Eventually moderators placed dedicated threads for epic exclusivity discussion but still, the whole subreddits tone was extremely vitriolic. Even on things that didn't have anything to do with Epic Exclusivity.
Then the game released. And that toxic discussion was totally wiped out by people actually playing the game. The subreddits snapped to positive tone instantly.
Most times I read reddit it is either in context of diving or a video game. Neither make me want to hate the world.
In particular, the rim world subreddit is great. That kind of game makes for a lot of crazy situations, and much of it is captured there.
When games has game breaking bugs, reddit is often a common search results with people discussing it and providing solutions. In many way it serve the same purpose for gaming as stackoverflow does for programming.
Is this just because the way I am reading reddit, or the subject matter?
Specialized reddits about programming topics, drugs, do it yourself stuff etc are quite good TBH. People are much more helpful then on some other popular places such as Stack Exchange in my opinion which hoards achievement people which do not generally answer unless there is a chance they will get a vote or something.
For YT, try a client like NewPipe or SmartTubeNext that can be configured with adbock & sponsor block, and which is less "in your face" about suggesting/autoplaying rabbit-hole content.
Considering NewPipe isn't available in the Play Store or at all on iOS, I'd imagine the number of people using it is small enough that Google doesn't care too much.
Technology-wise, NewPipe builds off of the back of youtube-dl and a custom page parser, and SponsorBlock uses a user-built database of timestamps.
TikTok regularly leaves me inspired, and across many different creative realms: Amazing makeup, mindblowing parkour, beautiful original music and eye opening covers. Oh and some of the short comedy sketches have left me thoroughly incapacitated due to laughter. The list goes on for me.
In general, I'm happier after viewing, even when the "you should stop watching too much TikTok guy" comes on.
I don't understand all the "it's more positive" comments here. It's almost seems like FUD to me. The times I used TikTok I just got so absorbed in it that I wasted hours of my life just scrolling endlessly consuming brainless content. I don't know how that was a positive experience compared to consuming a more thoughtful video on youtube, for example.
reddit and twitter are the most depressing places on the Internet. So much doomerism and political outrage.
It's on TikTok too but the TikTok algorithm quickly learns I'm not interested in political outrage and actually directs me toward content I'm interested in.
Something more toxic than reddit? I have only seen it in sites that start as "free-speech reddit clones". Outside those I find it hard to believe anything can be more toxic than Reddit. Unless you digg really deep into niche subs even Facebook is better.
Also, what subreddits/communmities are you in on Reddit that make you hate the world after 20 minutes? Are you on /r/popular or /r/all, or filtered down to your niche interests?
HN is mostly like a good day on Facebook but once in awhile it transcends every other social media. IMO it is going downhill fast though and the really good discussions are getting drowned out by China hate, nationalism, brand loyalty, etc. more often than not. All in all 30 minutes of Tiktok is likely to make me smile a lot more than HN but then there's not any real discussions so hard to compare the two.
All of Reddit makes me hate the world. No sub doesn't. If it does just visit it one or two times more and bingo.
HN is still relatively balanced, but I see a lot more reddit style comments. Usually 20 min on HN I find nothing really new, tons of polarizing topics, discussions are decent but ultimately pointless, I really feel like I need to take a break.
Even niche reddit communities end up being full of newbies and self promotion spam. There are exceptions (/r/steroids comes to mind back when I was into that) but programming/tech subreddits are just noise.
r/steroids used to be great but the pandemic really turned it toxic imo. Pandemic made so many subs polarized and awful to read. everything was trending negative before but now it's another level feels like.
I spend time on HN if a post I read also results in a meaningful conversation among the commenters. Usually I will try to add a comment as well, so there can be a bit of back and forth. It's not all one-way the way it is on TT.
Of course it's not always that way. I know to steer clear of posts related to H1B visas, because the exact same conversation plays out each time.
I learned a lot from watching YouTube. I was able to complete many home improvement projects based on DIY videos. And learned about many different subjects: history, science, engineering. I probably learned more from YouTube than from books. I do have YouTube Premium subscription so I don't need to watch ads — makes a big difference.
If I spend 20 minutes on TikTok I usually laugh and smile a few times. And regularly I’m impressed at human creativity.
20 minutes on Instagram or Facebook is usually either boring or leaves me comparing myself to others.
20 minutes on YouTube and I feel like I’ve watched 10 minutes of ads and 10 minutes of fluff.
20 minutes on Reddit and I hate the world.