Reddit fans should soon feel more connected with their fellow Redditors, thanks to a handful of new real-time features that the service is rolling out today. You’ll now be able to see upvotes, downvotes, and comments all changing as they happen, without needing to refresh or visit the thread. Not only will the numbers change right away, but you’ll also see a nice animation to bring it to your attention.
Comment counts will also get the same treatment, increasing as soon as someone shares a new comment, while typing indicators will also now pop up when two or more Redditors are writing comments at the same time. This will be shown via anonymized avatars, so you won’t know who is typing until they actually share their post, but you’ll at least have an idea of how many others are crafting their own responses.
Reddit is taking this a step further with reading indicators, letting you know when five or more folks are reading a post. A group of anonymous avatars and a count will show up at the top of the comment section.
Lastly, a new comment pill will appear when users share comments while you’re reading a post, so you’ll know immediately if there’s more to see. Clicking on the new comment indicator will show the newest comments and expand the view to highlight live comments in real time.
These new features are rolling out today across the entire Reddit service, including the Android and iOS apps, so you should see them appearing soon. While it sounds like they’ll be enabled by default, they’re entirely optional features, so you can turn them off in settings if you prefer to keep using Reddit in the more traditional way.
