[Neets]

I am going to try to give you my analysis of this phenomenon.

FreeRepublic is a "group" much like a Military Installation, and much unlike our hometown communities.

We are a gathering of people from each state, different countries, and various towns/cities joined together by an issue that interests us all. (just like in the military where you have Installation X and everyone who lives/works there is involved in some sort of military occupation/interest).

After having military service and Civil Service for over 25 years I have observed that at each duty station it felt like we had overly high instances of cancer illness or death, people suffering from depression and even criminal activity.

Because there are so many people from so many different areas, the likliehood that there would be higher than norm instances of these things is normal.

I guess my point is that the more people you have from many different places, the more likely you are going to have more of these types of things.

It's not the nature of the place that makes these things more frequent, but the numbers of people and their different orgigins, etc.

[Lazamataz]

I do, however, think that FR probably has an unusually high number of obsessive people. How many 'normal' people would post and read like we do??

[Amelia]

It's not the nature of the place that makes these things more frequent, but the numbers of people and their different orgigins, etc.

I also think some numbers may seem skewed because generally it's the people with prior interest in the subject who'll be posting on any particular thread.