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To what extent has reddit's culture changed because the users got less educated over the years? (self.SRSDiscussion)

hypatia02 が 投稿

When I first ventured out into the defaults (from /r/starcraft) i noticed the virulent anti-police sentiment. Somehow, I just got the impression that there are lots of people from the lower middle classes on reddit. Also, the gradual right-wing swing that are at odds with the mostly liberal slant in colleges helped me form in this impression (since I often equate college education to some manner of societal rank/wealth). I rationalized this trend as due to reddit's usefulness to those doing menial jobs or from the military (ie. time sink) meaning lots of users come from that area.

Then, when I did a search, I found a survey done some time ago showing that, after all, there are lots of college students here. And so I didn't pursue the matter further for a while.

Then, today, when I went on Alexa, I came across this shocking piece of statistic which showed that the % of people visiting this site that had no or incomplete college education is actually very much above the average for internet sites.

So, TLDR, do you think reddit is gradually becoming a site dominated by the less educated/well-read causing it to be more reactionary and extreme? I apologize in advance if this came off as a little elitist (which is a little ironic).

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[–]coolcoolcoolcool10 26 ポイント27 ポイント  (2子コメント)

"educated" people can be racist/sexist shit just as much as anyone else

[–]HBKKurt 3 ポイント4 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Jus look at Ted Cruz, went to two ivy leagues schools, a debate champion, and a massive piece of shit.

[–]Clumpy 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I feel like I went from harboring a lot of misconceptions and bad arguments to understanding things like advantage better as I took sociology and statistics and history courses, though. Obviously that reflects a need to "learn" my way out of privilege, that knowledge could have been gained anywhere, and people are free to completely ignore science if they want and often do. At the same time, it wasn't really until college that I learned to think critically (or to at least take a few tentative steps toward doing so).

[–]minimuminim 11 ポイント12 ポイント  (2子コメント)

You also have to look at how old the average Redditor is, because if a lot of them haven't had college education, it might well be because they're not old enough to start college or finish it.

[–]hypatia02[S] 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (1子コメント)

At first I thought this was the case, then I saw this infographic (derived from Google ad planner in 2012) which showed that lots of people are at college age (>18)

[–]RussianMountains 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Note that github and ycombinator, which are young on average, are both less educated than average, while facebook, which is older on average, is more educated than average. It's hard to say for sure without a more comprehensive analysis, but I suspect that controlling for age would largely eliminate reddit's apparently low education.

[–]John_Mandeville 5 ポイント6 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I have two (purely speculative) theories:

1) Early adopters of new technologies (Reddit's founding population) tend to be more open to experience, and so they expressed social conservatism at a lower rate than the the general population of the same age group (the original right-left split was, broadly, between libertarians and social democrats; hardly anyone was interested in traditional conservatism). As Reddit became mainstream and the userbase within that age group expanded, it began to more closely reflect the politics of the population as a whole.

2) The Great Recession tilted older Millennials to the left. The current college-aged population is coming of age in better economic times and probably feels less betrayed by the establishment, so they're (relatively) more conservative.

[–]kropot-kin 9 ポイント10 ポイント  (3子コメント)

What kind of connection are you trying to make between being anti-police and being uneducated here?

[–]TunicSongForKaren 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (2子コメント)

Anti-police sentiments are more prevalent in lower income areas.

[–]kropot-kin 14 ポイント15 ポイント  (1子コメント)

So is police abuse.
And for the first time we can use instances portrayed as individual aberrations to effectively demonstrate a pattern of oppression.

[–]TunicSongForKaren 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I am not denying that. That is the reason why anti police sentiments are more prevalent in lower income areas. I am not saying it id the fault of lower-income communities: it's the fault of police oppression.

You and me are on the same page.

[–]061ANNR 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

The phenomenon of Eternal September is nothing new, but I strongly disagree with the whole "Reddit's culture was once better" argument. My current account may be pretty new, but I've posted/lurked on Reddit for years - for all of my recollection, the site's userbase has always displayed reactionary and extreme elements (and that's even before the mass Digg exodus of 2010 or the major expansion we've seen in recent years.) Sure, the hate group subreddits are a little bigger than they once were, but I wouldn't say that the commentary has grown any worse than I remember it to have been.

[–]ravencrowed 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (1子コメント)

if this came off as a little elitist

it really came off as incredibly elitist. The idea that

College educated people are more intelligent Not really, they're just more suited towards certain jobs in capitalism.

people who go to college do menial jobs Seriously?

And the worst one:

poor people are right wing

come on, it's the rich who are invested in keeping the status quo, so they can hold onto their privilege.

[–]Lukeofthehighorder [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

I mean, I agree the OP's post is quite elitist, but there are a lot of fucking right wing poor people in the world. Like, a lot. We can apply Marxist theory all day, but it doesn't change the fact.