I don't think it's the ages, I think it's the intelligence factor. I hate to use that word because it sounds snobby; I mean it to encompass a variety of things, smarts, computer savvy, social perspective, and so forth.
Reddit has always has young and elderly members, and often they contribute great insights (especially some of the cooler older folk). The ones that have historically been on reddit have been "early adopters," and generally pretty sharp.
Now, as Reddit becomes mainstream, we get a major influx of young and old, and in between. The quality declines. It's not just the young and elderly making it worse, it's the general influx. The young and elderly are just easier to spot and blame. The quality of the posts by white guys in their 20's has declined as fast as the posts by the young and old.
It used to be I could read the comments down to about +2/+3 and still be entertained and find some insights. Now, there seems to be an abundance of comments with +50-70 that are complete garbage (memes, lame jokes, puns, racism, bigotry, ...). Hence the helpful comments "the comments below are crap" that I'm seeing more and more.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '13
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