zlacker

The barriers only seem low to those people who've already passed them.

But I remember teenage me, over 20 years ago, being very reserved about writing online because I considered my grammar too bad and I didn't want to embarrass myself.

And back then there wasn't even anything social media, where blunders like that could lead straight back to "real" me, the whole idea still made me anxious.

Can't even begin to imagine how teenagers these days must feel with social media being literally everywhere and recording pretty much everything they write for the foreseeable future.

At least nowadays they have access to some pretty good grammar correction tools ;)

>>freefl+(OP)
I know of some friends who are lurking on HN, but feel like the have nothing valuable to contribute to most discussions. So they just read the comments without feeling comfortable enough to interact with them.

Maybe out of fear of saying something wrong and getting debated on it - though it's quite civilized here. They might have seen too much of other websites where things turn less civil :)