For a long long time, the way we've consumed information has been constant. We'd recieve a steady supply of news from newspapers, and more recently websites and maybe discuss it with friends and family later. What reddit and other forums do differently is they combine this discussion with the news at the same time. Unlike normal news apps where users simply see a list of articles published by different media companies and choose what to read, reddit is far more community-driven. There is no mandate that posts about news must be present, but because of how much discussion and interest they drive it is almost a guarantee the latest news will be posted at the same pace as any other media-focused app. The discussion aspect of reddit is probably its best difference from traditional media in my opinion. You're immediately exposed to opinions from people around the world, and allowed to argue and defend your own. This in my opinion engages you far more in the news, than traditional media. And I think this aspect pays off for Reddit, driving user engagement to incredible heights as highlighted in this line "As a quantifiable metric for the supremacy of the site’s popularity, the amount of time the average user spends on Reddit per day is greater than any other social media site in the top 50. Clocking in at just under 15 minutes per user per day, it goes far beyond Facebook’s 10 minutes and 37 seconds and Twitter’s 6-and-a-bit minutes." For me, the way I can interact with such a diverse group of people from all around the world is one of the key reasons I use Reddit and why it's my preferred news app for the foreseeable future.
Here's a link to the article I quoted from "https://qz.com/1309562/reddit-is-the-best-social-media-site-because-it-gets-community-right/"
1 image, 1 link, 1 quotation, 299 words
Comments