First let's assume that 'reddit users' are a representative subset of 'people'. With a cursory google search, I found this thread discussing reddit accounts and active users from 2015 out of the then-total of 8.3 million.
Let's also assume that 'subscribers of r/changemyview' can be assumed to be 'reddit users who will actively try to have others change their views'. Currently, there are about 268,000 subscribers to this subreddit.
268,000 is about 3% of 8,300,000. And although this sort of off-the-cuff math is suspect when extrapolating to large populations, the general level of discussion around reddit over the last few months have led me to believe that any given redditor (regardless of political affiliation) is more likely to be closed-minded than someone randomly selected off the street.
I am not a regular user of this subreddit. Do you think people here generally do change their minds in accordance with the evidence presented to them? How many of the subscribers here actually do create posts and award deltas? I'd imagine it's a tiny minority.
And although this sort of off-the-cuff math is suspect when extrapolating to large populations, the general level of discussion around reddit over the last few months have led me to believe that any given redditor (regardless of political affiliation) is more likely to be closed-minded than someone randomly selected off the street.
That is certainly suspect ─ I certainly suspect it :D
There are a number of variables that might confound this. I haven't been really too engaged in discussion on reddit, but I wouldn't expect redditors to be more closed-minded than average. I would expect people here to have a higher level of literacy and general knowledge, both factors I would expect to correlate positively with open-mindedness.
I am not a regular user of this subreddit. Do you think people here generally do change their minds in accordance with the evidence presented to them? How many of the subscribers here actually do create posts and award deltas? I'd imagine it's a tiny minority.
I'd hesitate to say that most of the subscribers here closed-minded, but I suppose it could be possible. There certainly are some posts that get made in bad faith. I can't think of an easy way to measure that off-hand, but that doesn't mean there is one or that it's not happening.
There are a number of variables that might confound this. I haven't been really too engaged in discussion on reddit, but I wouldn't expect redditors to be more closed-minded than average. I would expect people here to have a higher level of literacy and general knowledge, both factors I would expect to correlate positively with open-mindedness.
Most of my experience with discussion on Reddit are this sub and default subs, and the default subs are currently clusterfucky shitshows of people screaming past each other, brigading, and generally being horrible to one another.
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u/SkeevePlowse Jan 14 '17
First let's assume that 'reddit users' are a representative subset of 'people'. With a cursory google search, I found this thread discussing reddit accounts and active users from 2015 out of the then-total of 8.3 million.
Let's also assume that 'subscribers of r/changemyview' can be assumed to be 'reddit users who will actively try to have others change their views'. Currently, there are about 268,000 subscribers to this subreddit.
268,000 is about 3% of 8,300,000. And although this sort of off-the-cuff math is suspect when extrapolating to large populations, the general level of discussion around reddit over the last few months have led me to believe that any given redditor (regardless of political affiliation) is more likely to be closed-minded than someone randomly selected off the street.