What hypothesis are you testing, or is gnawing at the back of your mind, in relation to LessWrong, as you surf LessWrong right now? Or perhaps you're just surfing idly.

For me its: Has anyone experimented with replacing their socialising with friends time with LessWrong exclusively? I wonder if the benefits associated with socialising such as increased well-being can be substituted for interaction in online communities.

Though, I suspect the nature of the community would be a strong determinant of the outcome. For instance, facebook would probably be unhealthy, as would IRC exclusively, but the LessWrong community as a whole excl. the IRL meeting community may be great! I feel like I've basically outgrown all my friends who I don't have some sort of professional relationship with anyway, or who I have a codependent/insecure-attachment towards.