[pengaru]

Social media (or any other means of advertising, past or present) has affected these things everywhere.

Even I complain about my inability to be alone on a trail in CA, or struggling to find campsites, occasionally shaking my fist at social media for it.

But the linked images from India showing extreme overcrowding has far more to do with the population size than social media. When you have that many people, any little force generating focused interest is getting multiplied by a huge number.

[twilightzone]

There are plenty of trails in India, this one just got advertised. You shouldn't conclude the world is overpopulated by looking at footage from a football cup match.

[pengaru]

> You shouldn't conclude the world is overpopulated by looking at footage from a football cup match.

You shouldn't deny India is overpopulated when riding a train there resembles a footclub cup match.

[vaidhy]

Is Japan over-populated? Tokyo's trains are extremely crowded. Is US over-populated? LA traffic jams are crazy.

What is the definition of over-population? Over what area are you measuring it? Those train images are likely from just one city. There are other places where the trains just run like any other place.

[pengaru]

India is such an outlier as a country... it's a unique combination of both massive absolute population of 1.4B+ and density of over 1000/mi^2.

We can split hairs about other places, and obviously lots of places have their population/crowding issues. The planet has a lot of people.

But India is just not useful as a data point for blaming social media for these phenomena because it's such an outlier. Practically anything informing the people of India of something somewhere of interest is going to generate a thundering herd of exceptional proportion. You don't need social media's help.

[anonzzzies]

But where is that 1000/mi^2 measured? Because I went to plenty of places in India where I saw no one or very few people for a long time driving or hiking. It sounds, like always, this is looking at cities and around cities. Most countries are pretty empty if you don’t want to live in a city (and fortunately, I don’t).