I have a theory that reddit was pretty decent when it first started because the majority of the site users were at least university or college students/age.
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.
Bang on. I deleted my account when I started to notice that I would grow older (and wiser) while the average Redditor always stayed the same age.
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.
There was a long period where the internet was intimidating and unattractive to regular people. It acted as a strong filter for determining who the people that frequented early sites where.
I remember "Eternal September" being used to describe this behaviour on 4chan about 10 years ago (when 4chan's own userbase likely was more high schoolers).
Though the original definition seems to be about ISPs giving unfettered Usenet access in 1993, causing a similar flood of newbies everywhere.
> Nowadays the average age is high school, and probably trending to grade school
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.
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