The big problem is that this incredibly popular site basically breeds a time-sink ethic, much like Facebook or MySpace, where you can waste hours and hours and have less to show for it than if you were watching porn. Heck, even video games at least develop quick hand-eye reflex and possibly strategy. It's like the TV generation, where kids sat for hours and hours on end staring at the "boob tube" turning their minds slowly to mush and influencing them in perhaps imperceptible ways. Except now they have peers to encourage their Reddit-inspired thoughts and actions.
And finally, as just a general representation of the Internet, it looks like a big pile of useless shit and maybe one or two nuggets of titillating but otherwise unenlightening news clips. Culturally bankrupt and moronic with a kind of perpetual recycling machine for lame content. If this was what I saw when I first got to the internet, i'd unplug the modem and go back to trying to find something good on TV.
http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/whittling-part-of-b...
"The human brain just seems to have a need for resting, for passing some time in a low-energy state. Computer role-playing games are perfect for that. When I fight fifty basically identical combats against darkspawn in Dragon Age or spend five hours finally getting my level 13 druid in World of Warcraft to level 14 or piled a hundred bricks on top of other bricks in Minecraft, I’ve done more than waste my time. I’ve given by brain rest that, for reasons I can’t begin to understand, it craved."
This rings incredibly true to me and I think many of the people who are reading this comment and who have read reddit & HN today are doing exactly this, they're putting their brain into a low(ish) energy state to give it a rest. I'm not implying that we're in that state all the time, if something of particular interest pops up we can be jolted out of it into something much more productive but for the most part people are grazing over the news and seeing what's going on in the particular corner of the internet they're interested in. All while not having to think too hard.
So what irritates me is people who look down on others because they like to watch reality tv, or read bad vampire romance novels or play video games when actually they themselves do similar but different "low energy" activities, only they've convinced themselves that their activities are better and more worthy and that everyone else is just wasting their time.