this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2025
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Bots increase online user engagement but stifle meaningful discussion, study shows (www.techexplorist.com)
submitted 5 days ago by pranjalmalewar@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] huppakee@lemm.ee 10 points 5 days ago

Thanks for sharing, this could actually be very helpful research for the development of Lemmy and other fediverse platforms. Here is some text from the article that explains what appearantly happens by using bots:

[...] not all bots are the same in the bustling world of Reddit.

Some bots are simple, [...]. Take WikiTextBot, for example. [...] Using Reddit’s API, it scans every post and follows its hard-coded rule: “If there’s a Wikipedia link, post a summary.” These bots, [are] known as “reflexive bots,” [...].

Then there are [...] the “supervisory bots” tasked with moderating discussions. [...]

[... ] it’s important to understand how the presence of these bots affects human-to-human interactions in these online communities. [...]

They observed that reflexive bots, which generate and share content, increased user connections by providing novel content and encouraging engagement. However, this came at a cost: human interactions became shallower, with fewer meaningful back-and-forth discussions. Instead, bots often replied to posts, limiting deeper conversations between human users.

On the other hand, supervisory bots, designed to enforce community rules, reduced the need for human moderators. Previously, key community members would collaborate to set and uphold norms, strengthening their roles within the community. With automated moderation, this coordination became less necessary, leading to a diminished role for human moderators in fostering community engagement and culture.

The story of bots on social media is still unfolding, with platforms and their creators tasked with finding the right balance between innovation and authenticity. As firms weigh the impact of bots, they face an essential truth: how these digital entities are managed will shape the future of online human connection.

So the last part is why this matters, but I wanted to include lines from the first part because they explain what the basis of the research. I took the liberty to put the last line in bold because that is why I felt the need to write this response. Also worth mentioning is the size of this research:

Between 2005 and 2019, Lalor and his team studied Reddit communities- almost 70 million posts- experiencing a rise in bot activity.