Why click bait articles are so effective

[mapgrep]

Because if they weren't effective, we wouldn't call them "click-bait." (In other words, because you've tautologically defined "effective" as "getting you to click.")

Behind the headline is a pretty shallow analysis. The author does not meaningfully distinguish between headlines that hide the core piece of information ("This One Weird Trick...") and headlines that bluntly state or exaggerate the core piece of information ("Headless Man In Topless Bar"). The author does not attempt to distinguish between aggressively conversational or casual headlines (a post internet phenomenon) and headlines written in a stiffer newspaper style or an explicityly hype-y tabloidy style. Nor does the author explore why his/her examples of "yellow journalism" headlines are all date from at least the early part of the 20th century — why did they then disappear for more than half of it, and why are they back now?

Lastly, the author does not distinguish between negative costs of "clickbait" headlines (squandering of reader time) and the benefits (enticing headlines arguably fuel crowdfunding systems like Kickstarter and independent, specialized news hubs like subreddits and HN).

[wahsd]

In other words, humans aren't all that different than fish in that we respond to base stimulus.

[anc84]

Judging by the domain name I guess this is for ipads? Absolutely annoying to read on my desktop with wide text, low contrast, whitespace all over the place.

If you want to skip to the content, ctrl-F "let's take a look at them". It's fairly low on content so nothing lost if you just skip it entirely.

[PhantomGremlin]

There's a twitter guy[1] whose entire raison d’être is to "save you a click" by giving you the gist. Problem is, there is nearly an infinite supply of these articles.

For example, here's a recent tweet of his:

   Top 5: Warby Parker, Apple, Alibaba,
   Google, Instagram. RT @FastCompany:
   The most innovative companies of 2015:

[1] https://twitter.com/SavedYouAClick

[zhte415]

The irony of a click bait article being posted by a new account. Deliberate?

But it was good. And I was a new account once too.

[jonahx]

Title should obviously be changed to: "Why you don't understand click bait articles"

[ibmthrowaway271]

"7 reasons why you don't understand click bait articles"

[andykellr]

"This small trick has intellectuals furious"

[anthony_romeo]

I should write a script where any link to an article whose headline contains the words "you", "your", or "you're" is changed to a link to a random book on Project Gutenberg.

[nakedrobot2]

I did not click on this meta-click bait.

[emodendroket]

Users hate him! Local man discovers one weird trick to get people to follow links to your Web site.

[TimWolla]

This title forced me to click. But it was worth it.