Evidence of Online Performance Deterioration in User Sessions on Reddit
This research addresses the problem of cognitive and attention dynamics affecting user performance on social media platforms like Reddit, though it is incremental in linking session intensity to measurable declines in comment quality.
The study analyzed over 55 million Reddit comments to show that user performance deteriorates during online sessions, with increasing session intensity leading to shorter, lower-quality comments that receive fewer responses and lower ratings from others.
This article presents evidence of performance deterioration in online user sessions quantified by studying a massive dataset containing over 55 million comments posted on Reddit in April 2015. After segmenting the sessions (i.e., periods of activity without a prolonged break) depending on their intensity (i.e., how many posts users produced during sessions), we observe a general decrease in the quality of comments produced by users over the course of sessions. We propose mixed-effects models that capture the impact of session intensity on comments, including their length, quality, and the responses they generate from the community. Our findings suggest performance deterioration: Sessions of increasing intensity are associated with the production of shorter, progressively less complex comments, which receive declining quality scores (as rated by other users), and are less and less engaging (i.e., they attract fewer responses). Our contribution evokes a connection between cognitive and attention dynamics and the usage of online social peer production platforms, specifically the effects of deterioration of user performance.