I suppose the difference is that the algorithm isn't specific per user. There are no bubbles like on social media, and the algorithm isn't designed to keep users engaged by tailoring their feed based on their viewing history.

There is definitely a HN bubble, we’re just all in it together

It's an interesting question: How do you define the line between a 'forum' (which most don't consider addictive or harmful), and 'social media' (where there is growing evidence of addiction and harm)? What are some attributes of social media that are missing on forums?

Opaque ranking algorithms?

Human curation / moderation?

Automated curation / moderation?

Voting / flagging?

Infinite scroll?

Images and/or auto-playing video?

Advertising inline with posts?

Profit motive to get users to do certain things?

I don't know where you draw the line, and what makes Facebook harmful but Hacker News not harmful.

Dang has spoken about this at some length in interviews, but the critical element is whether or not we're all seeing the same thing or not. HN is special in the world of social media because the front page is the same for everyone. That makes it quite a bit different than other social media sitesfolks mention (Twitter, Bluesky, Facebook, Insta). It means the algorithm can be tweaked for engagement (like demoting stories that have more comments than upvotes), but that you can't optimize per-visitor, but instead across the whole population. That one simple feature makes a world of difference, in my opinion.

> Images and/or auto-playing video?

This is the problem. Text only allows you to consume a certain amount of information at once. Anything more is harmful imo.

>What are some attributes of social media that are missing on forums

I find it surprising that the thing that's missing from the list is to me the only thing that matters, the creation of an identity and social graph. I don't think the algorithm or technical details are that important, the qualitative difference is that on social media you are someone. You have a persistent profile, you have "friends", you invest in building rapport and status, you have followers or are a follower.

On social media you interact with people, not with topics. There are creators, not discussions. On HN you could for practical purposes shuffle everyone's username each morning and it wouldn't matter for 99% of us, and that eliminates most of the dynamics associated with social media today.