Want to read Reddit but don’t have the time? Our daily Reddit Digest highlights the most interesting or important discussions from around the social news site—every morning.
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Every redditor needs to know the answer to this question: “Is viewing a computer screen for most of the day harmful to vision?” Hey, look, here’s an optometric technician ready to weigh-in: “There aren’t really any conclusive studies that find it detrimental to stare at a computer screen all day. There are 2 things that happen to your eyes: they get dry and they get tired.” (/r/askscience)
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Can you scientifically prove that rich people are more selfish, ruder, and just generally more awful than your average not-so-rich person? Possibly, but as one very diligent /r/science commenter observes, a popular study making the rounds is more than dubious. “Basically, if you think that monitoring a couple of intersections in San Francisco, online surveys, bribery for participation in the form of course credit and 100-200 person samples as science, [then] all is just fine,” he writes at the end of his 1,500 word take down. I don’t think that’s science, but I still think rich people are mean. (/r/science)
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Here’s another fascinating question and answer at /r/askcience: “If a person is starving to death, is there a point in which food intake will not save the person?” The answer. (/r/askscience)
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“A year ago today I proposed to the love of my life,” writes koolaidman2011 in /r/pics, “she passed away 5 days later due to Ovarian Cancer. She was only 17.” Why do people post pictures of their deceased loved ones to Reddit? I’ve always been curious of the phenomenon. I think the idea they do it for karma is beyond cynical. But one interesting thing that always happens: in the comments, others share their own stories of loss and grief. Is there something ameliorative about this kind of pseudonymous group therapy? (/r/pics)
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Here’s a cat chaser just in case you read through those comments above. (/r/pics)
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The Kony 2012 campaign launched heated discussions across Reddit. Yesterday morning, I counted 702 submissions about Kony posted within 24 hours. That kind of activity led to accusations of spamming at/r/theoryofreddit. “The line between marketing and content sharing gets blurrier every day,” chrisisme writes. “I would wager that quite a lot of things posted to Reddit are promoted with some kind of incentive to the original poster (other than Karma).” (/r/TheoryOfReddit)
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Meanwhile, the charity responsible for the video, Invisible Children, came under fire for allegedly dubious financial statements as well as whole slew of other charges. As a response, redditor blackstar9000 asked Reddit: “Can we as a community take more steps to protect ourselves from people who see this site as an opportunity?” His response is /r/advocacy, a place to organize without “advocacy spam” and to vet charitable organizations. The subreddit’s not without its critics, of course, who think the subreddit will marginalize causes by shepherding discussion into one place. (/r/AskReddit)
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What would you do if you found $17,000 in a hidden plastic bag in your house? “We just bought this house not long ago. The person who lived here was elderly, and by all accounts paranoid in the later years. It seems pretty reasonable that this was that person’s cash stash.That person has passed on, and the kids sold the house to us.” It’s an interesting ethical question. Most redditors say keep the money. (/r/AskReddit)
Did I miss something? Let me know in the comments!