Social media comparison trap — need advice

Dr.EndoIndy said:

If two explanations both fit, the useful question is which one predicts something the other does not.

There is a second half to this that has not been said yet. The version of this that has an answer is narrower than the version being asked. Narrow it and it becomes tractable; leave it broad and the thread will produce nine confident and incompatible replies.

If somebody has the primary source to hand I would rather cite it than paraphrase it.

One concrete data point for the thread. One practical note: write down what you did and when, before you need it. Reconstructing a timeline from memory three months later is how people end up unable to answer the one question that would have resolved it.

Following on from Dr.EndoIndy — and this may be the naive question:

How long did you give it before you decided it was working?

wendy_avl said:

One practical note: write down what you did and when, before you need it.

Filing a mild objection. Mild because I might be wrong; an objection because nobody has addressed the case that does not fit. The counter-case has not been addressed. Somebody upthread described the situation that does not fit, and the thread moved on rather than engaging with it, which is the failure mode this board is supposed to avoid.

wendy_avl said:

One practical note: write down what you did and when, before you need it.

That is right, and it stops being right at the edges. The general case is well behaved; the interesting cases in this thread are all at the boundary where the general case breaks.