[lettergram]

I think it's a bit different, on HN and Reddit it's much less about sharing ones life (there are subreddits for this, but in general, no). It's more about sharing interesting discussion and insight around content.

More than that, it's semi-anonymous, meaning it's not so much the relationship between people it's the relationship between content (or topics). This is a dramatic difference because it's harder to get into the loop of seeing other people happy.

Finally, there aren't push notifications for HN. I actually wrote a chrome extension to enable following discussions and push notifications.. I didn't really think it was appropriate to release because it would lead to more engagement, which is kind of a bad thing (e.g. lead to flame wars).

Anyway, they may not be "that different", except in a few key aspects.

[kopo]

I have been reading Marshall Rosenberg's Non-Violent Communication and according to that book - seeing people happy or seeing peoples interesting thoughts or seeing their appearance etc etc can all lead to comparative/judgemental thinking which leads to all kinds of unintended side effects. He references Dan Greenberg's book How To Make Yourself Miserable.

Yet to be seen if sites can somehow employ mechanics to reduce comparative/judgemental thinking...but its something they all intentionally/unintentionally fuel currently imho.

[beachy]

These are well observed and key differences between social networks.

The power of these small changes is disproportionately strong too. On HN, your username is very subtly rendered, and that possibly hella people focus on the content, rather than the individual who posted it.

On Reddit by contrast the username sticks out, can have flair added etc.

The result is imo more personality based repartee.