BACK IN MY DAY (jk my day is ongoing 😜), many popular sites were called “e/n” sites. This was like before blogs, before Google, etc. Back then, the web wasn’t very feature-rich, but it was “loud.” Contrast that with now: there are more sites than ever and wayyyyyyy more users than in the late 90s, but the www is very quiet and isolated (or isolating? I’m not sure how to phrase it).
Anyway, I think about this a lot, and I came to Lemmy to escape the labyrinth of marketing funnels that we call the www, but the element I can’t quite figure out is like where’s the social element on the web? I see many forums for like whatever niche subject, but where is the e/n chatter? Where do people like…be people in a very general sense? I was looking at the …sublemmies I follow, and they’re all like niche stuff. I really don’t even know where to post this question (so please pardon me if I screwed up and feel free to redirect me).
In essence, where – if anywhere – do people interact with people online?
Interesting – thank you for your thoughtful response. I think a lot of the “Dunbar number.” This guy Dunbar hypothesized a number of around 180 that was basically the max number of social connections primates had (or something). Circa late-90s, I had fewer friends online than IRL. However, as that behavior has become normalized, the prospect of having “online friends” has been normalized, thus removing pressure to like “go out and do something.” Moreover, back to Dunbar’s number, it has been completely normalized to have many isolated interactions, leading to a general disincentive to form new connections, as it seems like additional effort without clear upside.