The Psychology of Clickbait
In this article, Wired discusses why internet users are so drawn to clickbait. One aspect that is a clear reason why clickbait works is due to the role that emotion takes in our decision making processes. The degree in which our emotional levels are heightened during an interaction affects our clicking habits. Clickbait articles tap into the most impulsive emotions that are possible, i.e frustration, outrage, anger, etc. All of these emotions are what propel us to click on the articles that we see.
Another aspect is due to our own curiosity and information gap. The article argues that when human beings encounter a gap between the information they know and the information they want to know their emotions propel to fill that gap of knowledge. This is the reason why clickbait like “Here are the top five tips for working at Amazon” always grab user attention. We seek to understand, and when we have the opportunity to fill that understanding we can’t risk letting it go. Our minds immediately want us to click on the link even though instinctually we know that it will not deliver on what it promises.
This article shows how websites are able to achieve high click rates on clickbait titles even though everyone understands that the article is clickbait. This also shows why so many webpages choose to public articles with these clickbait links; they know it works. This method of grabbing user attention works and is actually why I clicked on this link. The explanations for the psychological reasons weren’t mind-blowing, but the title was enough to immediately grab my attention. It is likely that we will see more methods of clickbait as the internet and competition between web providers continues to grow.
https://www.wired.com/2015/12/psychology-of-clickbait/