> Social is the weapons-grade plutonium of online design; you can use it as part of a stable fuel source, or as the components of a weapon, but it's most likely to end up carelessly scattered around your community poisoning it for generations to come.
That right there is sheer genius, ladies & gentlemen!
It's interesting to compare sites with healthy social components (e.g. HN & reddit), to those whose social component has died off (e.g. /.), to those which use it unhealthily, if profitably (Instagram?).
I would not identify Reddit as having a healthy social component. Everything that has been said here about Instagram is also largely true of Reddit, and then you can add in the Neo-nazis, fatpeoplehaters and so on on top of that.
What makes a social component healthy/unhealthy? I generally found myself nodding to posts until I read yours, which made me think quite a bit harder. Can a community with questionable moral value (neo nazis) have a healthy social community? I certainly think those two are not mutually exclusive, and to tie them together may detract from a complete understanding of what "unhealthy" means.
(To answer the question myself, "healthy" vs "unhealthy" in my eyes is whether the community is a self perpetuating echo chamber, (for which many parts of instagram this certainly holds true, content regurgitation and mindless browsing, but I'm apt to believe not ALL of it) and similarly an ISIS forum may have more of a tendancy towards "unhealthy" social content, I don't believe it necessarily dictates it; I've read some fascinating discussions even on HN (linked to other sites) between extremist Muslim/European religious experts that would be a fit for the most cultured discussion boards, even if context of one sides subject matter is far darker.)
That right there is sheer genius, ladies & gentlemen!
It's interesting to compare sites with healthy social components (e.g. HN & reddit), to those whose social component has died off (e.g. /.), to those which use it unhealthily, if profitably (Instagram?).