Angel Susantin (Week 1) - You WON'T BELIEVE What I Wrote About!!!!
You WON'T BELIEVE What I Wrote About!!!!
By Angel Susantin
Hey! Now that I've caught your attention (I know you’re obligated to be here, but that’s okay), let's talk about the power of clickbait on human behavior. What is clickbait and why does it work? The following information may surprise you…
In the context of media, clickbait is typically a headline or an image that is meant to bait an audience into clicking on a link, which will lead them to the promised content, hence the name. They take you down a rabbit hole of obscure articles/media and can really deter you from being productive online.
Oftentimes, clickbait is sensationalized, vague, or misleading, abusing a human’s “curiosity gap,” or the detection that new info is available, which sparks a person’s desire to access it. This desire for valuable information is hardwired into human behavior in relation to the evolutionary perspective of psychology. This perspective explains human behavior as a result of a means of survival (remember survival of the fittest?). Unknowingly, we are consistently looking for the best information that will satisfy our curiosities and the promise of answers through these clickbait titles are a major player as to why we gravitate towards them.
From the biological and behaviorist perspective of psychology, the "happy chemical" (properly known as dopamine) is very involved in our motivation towards learning new information. However, it is not finally gaining the information that gives us satisfaction. When encountering clickbait, dopamine is released and creates a neural pathway that acts sort of as an "itch" for knowledge. Clicking the link and falling for clickbait relieves us from this "itch," which can be considered a sort of negative reinforcement (takes away a stimulus and gives the incentive to repeat an action).
However, despite the innate disabilities to avoid these clickbait-y headlines, there are certainly ways to practice self-control when on the internet. Keep in mind that humans did not evolve to cater to this hyper-connected world. Here are some tips from psychologytoday.com that may help you:
1. Don't beat yourself up about it; everyone falls for clickbait!
2. Notice your patterns and replace them with more adaptive ones; think about other things such as taking some time off the screen.
3. Consider using website blocking tools.
And there! You've just spent a few minutes reading about a blog about clickbait and its fascinating psychology. Can you believe that?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/tech-happy-life/201909/how-does-clickbait-work
Comments
Ah yes clickbait, don't we all love the videos that go "only 0.1% of the population can do this". (I would click on those when I was tiny cause you know i'm just competative like that). Anyways, this "itch" is very much true and can also be applied when you are driving past a bunch of police cars. This really amazes me how everyone and I mean LITERALLY EVERYONE slows down to look at what is happening and indeirectly causing traffic. Thank you for clarifying the cause of this.
Sincerely,
Mrinmayee
It's really cool to see how you used clickbait to talk about clickbait. I have seen a lot of videos about clickbait and have seen many clickbait videos. I can totally understand the desire to click something based on its title, and the disappointment to find out that it isn't actually about that topic. I sometimes think that clickbait helps me to choose reliable videos and sites, as clickbait titles typically have a common theme among them.
Clickbait is honestly such a smart way to get people to click on websites, videos, or other forms of social media. You also explained clickbait very precisely and wonderfully! I don’t know the amount of times I’ve fallen for Youtube videos with a title in all caps: BEATING THE WORLD RECORD or etc. and shortly realizing that it was just a video of the content creator sponsoring an advertisement. The disappointment that comes after clickbait is surely annoying, but I guess that makes me less prone to click on videos with awesome titles or video covers.
Sincerely,
Faith Tong
I agree clickbait can be very annoying tons of people fall for it every day. Not to mention only clickbait I also thought of this video that talked about the psychology behind wording titles in a certain way that would make more people watch the video. I think for this blog post you really grabbed "hold" of my attention making the curious human mind wonder what you actually wrote on for your blog .
I absolutely despise clickbait, I’ve spent hours watching videos because of their interesting caption. I agree that people fall for clickbait due to their curiosity, and I have fell for this many times. I also really liked the three points you mentioned towards the end “1. Don't beat yourself up about it; everyone falls for clickbait!
2. Notice your patterns and replace them with more adaptive ones; think about other things such as taking some time off the screen.
3. Consider using website blocking tools.”
I just thought it was very helpful and I found the first point cute, lol.
Your photo really reminds me of those really popular clickbait thumbnails from 2016. I get clickbaited a lot because I'm very gullible and I do often fall down those rabbit holes where I keep reading dumb articles like that. I think it is cool that we release dopamine when learning about new things. I just wish that it would happen at school, so school would be a lot less boring. Thank you for your tips at the end. Lately, I have started trying to cater my Youtube page away from clickbaity titles, by pressing do not recommend, and you can try this too. I do think that it helps me by removing them as soon as I see them, because it is too short for me to become interested.