I was mostly a lurker on reddit for many years. Before that was a forum board user, moderator, and even setup a few for sports leagues. Despite being sports centric there was usually off topic sections for politics and other off subject debates. Often these sections became more popular than the sport.

Then it would became drama filled and once a year there would be complaining about all the new summer users once kids were out of school. They would flood the forums with newbie stuff and people would leave the forum and find a new home. Seems like this pattern repeats to the newer socials too.

With FB etc the forum boards seem to lose a lot of that daily traffic over time. FB and other Socials delivered that quick dopamine hit and it didn't even need to be in the niche the forums were. For those that wanted the niches, FB groups came on the scene.

For me with Reddit it came on one of my early Android phones which was great for reading with. I didn't comment much as the threads were usually fairly deep with comments and sort of done by that stage. It didn't have that small town feel like the old forums so I wasn't as inclined to add much. Still there was plenty to read, perhaps too much as books began to be replaced by socials too. Since I was only a mobile user, the API changes were a great reason to get off reddit and read books again. Still working on that.

I'm finding myself commenting more on Lemmy but like the life cycle of the forums and reddit, it's only a matter of time when the users reach the tipping point and the feel of the place will change.

So I'm trying to enjoy things as they last these days. Hopefully get some books in there now too...

I miss having pen pals, social media really ruined that for me as well. I still remember when my, then, close friend moved over to Facebook. Our usual bi-weekly exchanges slowly changed into her posting updates and dozens of followers writing simple replies. No longer having the time to write individually. I still don't know how exactly, but we just drifted apart after that. Still hurts a little when I think about it.

Anyway... That was about 15 years ago and until now I haven't really been vocally active online, just spend my time lurking like so many others. I really had to make a conscious effort to get more interactive and I took the move to Lemmy as my excuse to do so. People were already complaining that no one commented and only upvoted, so I'm trying to be the change I want to see :)
It's not like the old interactions I had with my pen pals, but I do like the human connection I sometimes get with others.