In my eyes, the reddit is a large discussion board with many discussion forums related to topics of many areas like music, books. You can just type any topic you are interested, and find the right subreddit. Within one subreddit you subscribe, all posts will be ranked based on every redditor’s votes, which allow you to enjoy all the hot posts which rise to the top. Within one reddit, you can send a private message to any redditor if want to talk about something further privately. You can also “friend” one another, and then have a quick access to posts and comments of your friend list. Except for online communicate with other redditors, you can socialize at meetups held at local parks and bars around the world, and attend local in-person meetings if you like ("Reddit Worldwide Meetups", 2011). So reddit is a kind of social network site like Facebook and Twitter where reddits can discuss with others, make friends, and maintain friendship with offline meetings. But the unique of it is that it promotes deep discussions among redditors who share the common areas of interests without revealing their real identity.
I have observed a subreddit “GradSchool” for one year due to my personal interest and research purpose since one classmate referred me to this website. The subreddit is active. Each day, around 20 posts are submitted, immediately followed by comments which are even more than 60. While I am writing this blog, 21,866 readers and 42 users are in this subreddit. Here, graduate students share any challenges they have in academic work and life, share their personal experiences and news, ask for advice, etc. Comments for those posts are constructive and helpful because every redditors are honest to each other. But most of posts and comments are text-based with few pictures and videos, which make this subreddit old-fashioned.
I read others’ posts, and make suggestions to other graduate students once in a while. Personally, I feel safe to engage in this reddit because other redditors do not know who I am. I can engage in deep talks with any reddit about any topic I am interested. However, I find an interesting thing that after several days, the submitter for a post will stop responding to your pots. This makes me feel this website is kind of news websites where something hot and eye-catching every day is becoming hot topics. Most of posts like news are about negative experiences or feelings. However, one interesting thing I notice is that on this subreddit, a post is always submitted on Friday “Let’s talk about something good” in which graduate students share their good news and feeling.
This is my experience with reddit. Hope you guys have a nice trip with reddit.
References:
Reddit Worldwide Meetups" (2011, December 4). Retrieved from https://www.reddit.com/r/meetup/
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