That’s just who I am. A lurker by nature. A browser in the night. I’m… Lurkman?
What makes you not want to post?
That’s not limited to Lemmy. It’s what happens across all social media. A tiny percentage of people will post, a larger percentage will comment, and the vast majority will lurk. The general numbers I’ve heard thrown around are 1-9-90, but the posters and commenters are probably much lower than 1% and 9%. Especially as platform size increases.
As for why, and this is hazarding a guess: posting takes effort, commenting takes less, and lurking takes the least.
Kinda sucks don’t you think?
No. I prefer signal rather than noise.
Yes, but the more we comment and post the more likely it is new memebers will stay which eventually leads to more posters and commenters
What incentives them to start participating and not lurk anymore?
Great question, I honstly dont know, I think if you can answer that you can make a lot of money somewhere lol companies spend millions trying to get people to engage with stuff
Man that’s so true. Good point. It gets tiring being only one of the few to post stuff. Wish more ppl made that effort
I lost count of the times I started typing a post or comment and either couldn’t come up with the right phrasing to convey what I want, or just decided that my dumb comment wasn’t worth posting.
Over analysis paralysis
Exactly.
I feel that
I think most people treat it as a news/content aggregator service…
Much of the time the perfect comment has also already been made.
Yea true, that’s a good point
I don’t think the ratio is that far off from reddit. Getting involved takes effort. Up votes take none
True. But isn’t that boring though?
Depends on the person i guess. Most seem content just scrolling. shrug
Yea it’s annoying honestly
What makes you think they do that?
Let me digress through a psychological lens… Doom scrolling can be relaxing and mesmerizing. It’s like a digital rain during the nighttime, the sound of the water droplets, the fresh smell on the air, the comfy sleepiness… That’s how doom scrolling may be perceived by the brain. A calm, endless rain of dopamine. It’s a lower energetic state, switching to the parasympathetic nervous system. Nature and physics tend to seek the lowest energy state, it’s no different for human brain.
It’s easier to just listen to the sound of the digital rain. It’s harder to make it rain, it demands mental energy. And the brain generally wants to spare it.
yes
But why though
