For me lockdown triggerd polar opposite, manic state. 40 days in psychiatric hospital without worrying about COVID was a blessing in disguise.
Show HN: Mental State of HN Users Before/After Lockdown
11–20 of 38 posts
Re: Show HN: Mental State of HN Users Before/After Lockdown
#12For those only interested in the results: > 40.0% more submissions with depression related keywords in the title after lockdown vs before 18% more comments on posts with depression related keywords in the title after lockdown vs before 9% more upvotes on posts with depression related keywords in the title after lockdown vs before
The way this is worded, it seems like the author simply counted the number of posts with negative words in them. And then compared the number to last year. In that case, the increase could be explained by more posts on HN overall. Without any change in "mental state". Lets have a look into the calculations ... Hmm.. as far as I can see, the calculations indeed do not take overall change in posts into account.
HN didn't have a significant increase in traffic due to covid compared to other sites, hence the more submissions didn't lead to more traffic. OP dropped also submissions that didn't hit the frontpage by removing those with less than 10 comments. So the 19% more submissions couldn't influence the result. And even if, you'd still have 19% vs 40%.
Re: Show HN: Mental State of HN Users Before/After Lockdown
#13I've been relatively ok (I have an anxiety disorder), but it's been pretty hard on my son who's on the spectrum. He used to love going to parks and playing, but after a few months of lockdown he is afraid of stepping out anywhere. Anxiety is now up through the roof. He taught himself to read (with basic comprehension) during the lockdown (just before his 3rd birthday) - but that's a good thing and a bad thing (hyperlexia). Considering therapy now for him, which we weren't entirely for earlier since many people in the spectrum have highlighted some important issues.
In short, it's been pretty hard on the family. I decided to go back to my anxiety medication which I hadn't needed for quite some time.
Re: Show HN: Mental State of HN Users Before/After Lockdown
#14Anyone wants to offer an alternative hypothesis on why HN traffic didn't get skyrocketed like every other outlet?
Re: Show HN: Mental State of HN Users Before/After Lockdown
#15@dang why did you block me, so I couldn't reply anymore in my own thread?
Edit: + shadow-banning + super gravity, so my comments land on the bottom
What did I do wrong?
Re: Show HN: Mental State of HN Users Before/After Lockdown
#16slightly OT and totally non scientific (just my gut feeling), but I have a feeling that HN became more polarized and negative/combative in recent months. I think I notice much more downvotes and flagging taking place than before. I wonder if this is also something that can be analyzed? (not sure HN exposes it, but in a way simpler than sentiment analysis, right?)
I definitely noticed this. In February-March, the whole experience became vastly more hostile and stressful. I stopped getting replies with relevant anecdotes, corrections, or follow-up information, and started getting lots of replies attacking my character and dismissing my experiences.
I changed my HN account's password and logged out for good near the start of April. I still read it and occasionally make a one-off account like this to comment, but I don't see it as a community any more. In my mind, it is the new Reddit front page.
But hey, dang - thanks for all the hard work and good moderation while it lasted.
Re: Show HN: Mental State of HN Users Before/After Lockdown
#17Anyone wants to offer an alternative hypothesis on why HN traffic didn't get skyrocketed like every other outlet?
It’s possible that the moderators tweaked some knobs to control the rates of submission, the rise to the front page, the time on the front page, etc. Not that they did it individually, but there could be more added mechanisms this year. Maybe they will respond and provide some insights.
Re: Show HN: Mental State of HN Users Before/After Lockdown
#18Anyone wants to offer an alternative hypothesis on why HN traffic didn't get skyrocketed like every other outlet?
Personally for me, before during and after the quarantine my use of HN has pretty much remained the same, I work with computers (like most of us here) and I check HN when I get a little bit of down-time, like while waiting for something to compile or waiting for a file to get transferred or something to finish installing,only thing that changed was during the quarantine I was working from home, the number of hours I worked, the nature of work I do and how I do that work remained pretty much the same.
So, I am guessing this is pretty much what happened to most of us as well? And therefore for a majority of HN users, our HN browsing habits probably stayed the same?
Re: Show HN: Mental State of HN Users Before/After Lockdown
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
The way this is worded, it seems like the author simply counted the number of posts with negative words in them. And then compared the number to last year. In that case, the increase could be explained by more posts on HN overall. Without any change in "mental state". Lets have a look into the calculations ... Hmm.. as far as I can see, the calculations indeed do not take overall change in posts into account.
HN didn't have a significant increase in traffic due to covid compared to other sites, hence the more submissions didn't lead to more traffic. OP dropped also submissions that didn't hit the frontpage by removing those with less than 10 comments. So the 19% more submissions couldn't influence the result. And even if, you'd still have 19% vs 40%.
I don't see how other sites play a role in this.
Only counting posts with 10+ posts does not guarantee that the baseline is the same for the two groups. You seem to imply that the number of posts that reach over 10 points means they reach the frontpage and that the number of posts that reach the frontpage is always the same during two time periods of the same length. But I don't see how either of these two assumptions has to be true.
The problem with the "19% vs 40%" comparison is that it does not compare the same thing. According to this article:
19% is the increase in total posts
40% is the increase after posts with less then 10 votes have been removed AND posts without the negative keywords have been removed.
This comparison is not the right one. Either posts with less then 10 votes need to be subtracted from both groups or from none of them.
Re: Show HN: Mental State of HN Users Before/After Lockdown
#20For those only interested in the results: > 40.0% more submissions with depression related keywords in the title after lockdown vs before 18% more comments on posts with depression related keywords in the title after lockdown vs before 9% more upvotes on posts with depression related keywords in the title after lockdown vs before
That isn't necessarily the mental state of HN. Given the nature of HN, it could just reflect interest in the subject.