Is it new that people expect the forum to read their minds?

I don't know what your *kitten* is doing, Ms. GreenSheep.

When I first started back in 2007, I was in the 5000 members range with my user number. Before cell phones were smart. Maybe 10 new threads daily, total. People were still enamored with facebook.

Then smart phones. Holy crazy questions, Batman. Smart phones changed forums and not in a good way.

I think short questions are a way for people to play around and try out the app. If you notice, most of those OPs never even return to the thread. For that matter, most people who stick around are in specialized groups or threads, or are already in Maintenance.

And yeah, ya can't really answer some of them and/or even figure out what they are asking.

It's okay. Forums are dying.

Humans have always expected other humans to read their minds.

Pre-Internet-technology, it was more like family members expecting us to know someone wanted a hug without them having to tell us every freaking time (or whatever).

Now, all the minds in the world are supposed to be connected, because we have electronic devices in our hands.

When the devices had keyboards, and a higher fraction of adults had taken typing class, the questions were longer. Maybe mostly only the people who knew how to type and felt comfortable writing would participate.

Now most devices are tiny and swype-y, so full typing takes too much time even for typists. And nearly everyone communicates with the devices all the time with family/friends/others in writing, in short text messages, many of which are barely coherent IRL, too.

(I agree with the other theories above, too, BTW.)

Also people seem to randomly post on any forem. For example posting on "maintaining weight" with questions about how to start to lose 50 pounds or how to break a plateau....those of us who are in maintenance are essentially trying to keep that hard earned plateau.

I tend to think forums overall are becoming things of the past. People have moved on to things like IG / FB / Tik. Video and sound in place of words. As compared to years past there are more popular Social Media apps today than there were back then for 'interaction'.

This is not isolated to MFP by any means. I used to belong to forums specializing on personal unique hobbies and they as well have pretty much disintegrated to dust compared to even 10 years ago.

Similar to others who have already posted in this thread, I've been on/off over MFP for 10 years. Forums here have gone through many changes along depending on who 'managed' them and in some cases - who owned MFP.

It used to be a daily task to keep up with all the posts here. Many of which where highly interactive. Some 'heated' / some not. Once the 'banning' of users from posting stepped in then the controversial 'wooo' button was used, activity seem to dwindle.

Even trying to get a list of highly interactive friends is more challenging than it was 10 years ago. Now people just click the 'like' and move on.

So - why do people post have asked questions?? Because they can and because 3-5 word posts across various Social Media platforms are most common.

kshama2001 wrote: »

sollyn23l2 wrote: »

AyameShimitsu wrote: »

As someone who spends a lot of time on the internet, people tend to write short and sweet. I think it really took off with Twitter with the limited character count. Add live stream chats where you don't have time to write a lot due to fast communication, I think the younger generation has made it a habit to talk this way. Especially as talking to computers (Google, siri, alexa) can at least use a database of similarly asked questions by others to at lease kind of figure out what they may be talking about. I equally find it frustrating. I write stories and ask for feedback online and their feedback is a thumbs up. Imagine writing 300k words and the feed back is a thumbs up.

💯 This is why I really limited my responses to people on here that ask a question. You respond, and then they either just ignore it or give a one sentence argument back, usually just saying "won't work" or something to that effect. Then don't pay any attention to what you said anyway.

I have a doc with my common replies to new posters' FAQ. For almost all "Why am I not losing weight?" questions, I ask them to make their diary private. The answer inevitably lies there. I don't want to play 20 questions with someone who is not actually invested in answers.

My bold.

I presume this was meant to say you ask them to make their diary public.

history_grrrl wrote: »

If it is an issue, I think it has to do partly with lots of people not understanding how to do research or what constitutes evidence. I’m in a couple of Facebook groups for people who share a difficult and sometimes dangerous medical condition. It’s astonishing how often people show up with questions like, "How long will I live?” or “Should I have a baby?” or “How much weight can I lift?” None of us can answer these for total strangers with complex and varying medical histories about which we know virtually nothing; we can only share our own experiences and advise these people to consult with such-and-such specialist based on their own situation, family history, etc. We can share expertise but even then can only talk about probability - sometimes. I suspect most people really have no idea that personal anecdotes, while often helpful and inspiring (or concerning), are the same as actual data.

YES! I admin a group on Facebook as a support group for a complex Neurological disorder that I also have. I am inundated with questions about how long will they have this, why dont doctor's do xyz etc. Questions that noone can answer. It's astonishing to me that people even think others can answer such complex and subjective questions. I have been off the forum for 7 years (mostly) as my health took a turn. I deleted my old account and started again so I havent been here for the trends but I know how annoying internet people can be. I have also noticed how difficult it is to find active friends.

sollyn23l2 wrote: »

My personal opinion is that people are treating it like Google. They think "oh, write a couple key words in a sentence and I'll get a list of 1000 results." I think they've gotten so used to Google and Alexa that they don't even really realize it's real people on here in the forum, not AI. I saw a woman throw a fit because her question wasn't answered in 20 minutes

if you put so little info into google, you generally get pretty poor / generic results. same on any forum.
just sayin'...

Lol. That’s funny right there. Funny because it’s true