From AOL's 'You've Got Mail' to Nextdoor's toxic echo chamber: A millennial's journey

Being an "elder millennial," my first experience of the World Wide Web started with a serenade from a noisy little box next to my computer, followed by a familiar and always exciting voice saying, "You've got mail."

Social media has come a long way from AOL's Wild West chat rooms, where you could join random strangers discussing their love of grilled cheese, to the almighty algorithms of modern platforms designed to keep you scrolling.

But of all the social media platforms I use, the one I least enjoy is Nextdoor.

Launched in 2011, Nextdoor is a unique "hyperlocal" social media platform, boasting 41 million weekly active users. Unlike Facebook or Instagram, Nextdoor focuses on connecting neighbors by verifying users' locations and putting them in localized groups based on proximity.

Designed to be a bulletin board-like environment to allow users to interact with their immediate neighbors and foster a close-knit community, you will see posts looking for recommendations for mechanics, advertisements for church events or someone looking for wooden pallets for a project.

You also get the usual complaints of noisy kids, loud cars or the typical "get off my lawn."

The rest of the time, it's a toxic cesspool that enables irrational fear of crime, spreads constant misinformation and is the proverbial beating of a dead horse when it comes to city issues.

It's like walking through a virtual town square where neighbors share squabbles and conspiracy theories instead of cups of sugar. Nextdoor is an echo chamber of skepticism and scorn.

A few users dominate the feeds with their constant posts complaining about the same thing that can be summed up as "Every bit of verifiable information is a lie, and I'm the only one who knows the real truth—trust me."

I play a game of constant whack-a-mole with the same cast of characters that use Nextdoor to take free shots at their favorite targets like the City of Bartlesville and its staff, the EE and, well really, anyone they disagree with.

Those same users conveniently find themselves consistently on the opposite side of every city decision. Water restrictions aren't harsh enough, water restrictions are too severe, the city shouldn't be giving incentives to businesses, the city lost an opportunity not giving that business a tax break, and the list goes on and on.

They often treat the platform as if the city officials are constantly refreshing the feeds looking for feedback from them specifically and always seem shocked they never get a reply.

The recent bond issue was a major sore point for many Nextdoor posters. If you only communicated on the platform, you would have thought 99% of Bartlesville voted against the bond.

The bonds ended up passing with more than 70% in favor or, as Nextdoor folks would say, "Can you believe the city is ignoring 30% of the residents!?"

When the bond issues passed with more support than users expected, they turned their attack to the turnout instead, which ended up being on par with other past bond issues. On Nextdoor, there is always something more to complain about.

Besides the clearly critical posts about everything, the comments section often gets off-topic and becomes a political argument revolving around some form of "fake news." Nextdoor users hardly show grace, and no one gets the benefit of the doubt in this Thunderdome.

Let's not forget the crime reporting. Nextdoor has tried to digitize the "neighbor watch," and users fixate on crime and can push themselves into a frenzied paranoia quickly.

A 2023 study by the University of Houston revealed that Nextdoor users perceive a higher prevalence of crime due to the "availability heuristic"—making judgments based on readily available information, in this case, from social media.

According to the FBI, all crime in Oklahoma has been trending down since the late '90s, but do the experts really know more than my neighbor with a ring camera who saw a hooded figure walk by his house last night? Checkmate fake news.

Now, I can't wait to read the comments about this opinion column on Nextdoor, as users often copy and paste in full EE articles, leading to a rousing discussion about my biased reporting and the ever-present "remember when the paper reported about local issues."

So do me a favor if you ever find yourself reading something on Nextdoor that seems off or maybe slanted in one direction... No, on second thought, let's not go to Nextdoor — it is a silly place.

This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: Nextdoor's crime watch obsession: Ring cameras, paranoia, 'fake news'