Everyone knows clicking on an article promising to tell us “What REALLY happened,” or “The devastating truth,” is pointless, but something compels us to click. I’m one of the monkeys on the production line, writing the very stories you judge yourself for reading. I spend my working hours pushing everything I learnt during my journalism degree out of my head, so I can waste your brain cells and your phone’s data. Often, these stories stem from one social media post or video, or a survey of nine people by company hungry for cheap headlines. You can’t blame the outlets churning out these stories; you’re the ones clicking on them, generating advertising revenue and perpetuating the cycle.
I’m required to simplify everything as much as possible in order to appeal to our baser instincts, which are apparently attracted to hyperbolic headlines and patronising copy. I reduce hefty, nuanced scientific studies to simple stories that would no doubt enrage the scientists who dedicated years to the research. But these stories aren’t about research into groundbreaking cancer therapies or cures for depression. They’re about how to spot a psychopath, why women prefer bald men and why coffee might actually be good, bad, terrible, or the best thing ever. I know simplifying science to the degree I do is misleading at best, and dangerous at worst.
I’m also under strict instruction to break up every few paragraphs with an image or a gif, because your brain apparently can’t handle any more than a few hundred words without needing a break.
But while I’m obliged to treat you like an idiot, I can’t deny that I’m doing something right as the traffic keeps coming. During my time on this job, I’ve found some patterns to the types of stories that go viral. And the stories people are most drawn to have taught me a lot about the human psyche. Viral stories give us one of six things, according to Jonah Berger, associate professor of marketing at Wharton university, Pennsylvania and author of Contagious: Why Things Catch On. They offer social currency that makes us feel like insiders when we share them, they offer useful information, trigger a memory of something, or spark an emotional response.
I write a lot of stories on new, mind-numbingly obvious ways to lose weight, as well as stories debunking “the real reason” behind something, based on one questionable Reddit post. Judging by the types of “how to” articles I’m told to write, we’re also keen to read about quick fixes on how to sleep, look more attractive and appear smarter.
When it comes to emotional triggers, anger is the most effective, according to Sander van der Linden, a social psychologist from the University of Cambridge who studied what makes charity campaigns go viral. He explains why we prioritise strong emotions over the truth, using the example of Pizzagate, the false story claiming Hillary Clinton ran a child sex ring. “Why did this story go viral? It clearly made a lot of people angry and outraged,” Sander tells me. “It also has an element of immoral behaviour, as well as violating social common norms of what’s considered appropriate."
We also share false information because of our “limited” attention span and how it’s evolved, according to van der Linden. “We can’t attend to all issues all of the time, and therefore, we selectively shift our attention from one issue to the next,” he says. Viral stories, he continues, have a short shelf-life because once one has been shared and viewed enough times, it reaches a “tipping point” where people stop reading it properly. “Instead, they simply click ‘share,’ because the very fact that a million people have already read it serves as evidence that it must be important, regardless of accuracy.” And the reason we do this, van der Linden says, is evolutionary. “Humans evolved paying very close attention to what others are doing. If something goes viral, it’s evidence that something important is happening in society, which acts as a self-sustaining mechanism: more people join the bandwagon, which further strengthens the signal, more people join, and so on." He gives an example: “Classic social psychology experiments have shown that if a group of people stand at the end of a street corner, all looking up at the sky, most passers-by will automatically look up as well, because we process such behaviour as evidence that something important is happening.” This behaviour, he concludes, has simply been moved online. If a viral news story isn’t important, all we lose is a “click and a share” by checking it out. But I can’t judge people for sharing false stories online when the truth has such little bearing in what I do. I’m very rarely required to fact-check anything, because who cares about the truth when the headline is so good? Online traffic, if it wasn’t already obvious, is the only thing measured in this job. The fact we share stories without paying much attention explains why I get away with regurgitating stories while adding nothing.
As we don’t care too much for the truth, the most powerful online currency is emotion. This drives everything we share online, according to Berger. He analysed thousands of New York Times articles to see what made a story go viral, and found they were mostly awe-inspiring, emotional, positive or surprising. These stories come in a few variants. First, there’s the good deed story, when someone does something selfless – usually for a stranger – and shares it online in a humble brag that gets them thousands of shares.
We also share these stories because we want to look empathetic. We’re interested in stories that resonate with our own lives and identity, but we consider others as well as ourselves, according to researchers from the University of Pennsylvania. They looked at the brain activity of participants as they read articles, and concluded that people “share things that might improve their relationships, make them look smart or empathic or cast them in a positive light”.
You might think sharing a stupid story about a man cutting horse’s fringe was counter-productive to this, but no. “They might seem stupid, be they are often remarkable is some way, something that is unusual, special, or surprising,” says Berger. “And that often makes the sharer look good to their peers. Just like someone telling a remarkable story at a cocktail party.”
Another type of story we love to share is someone fighting against society’s ills. A woman who loses weight in an unconventional way; stands up to trolls; shares an inspirational, body-positive or pro-breastfeeding message; or a the-real-truth-behind-motherhood story; or someone exposes the truth behind flattering Instagram poses. We also enjoy reading about women shutting down sexist tweets, a celebrity “hilariously owning” someone who left a racist comment, or the heartbroken-turned-angry getting revenge on cheating partners.
This might be because rage is our fastest emotion. Researchers at Beihang University, Beijing tracked the emoticons embedded in millions of messages posted on Sina Weibo, a Chinese microblogging platform. They found that anger plays a big role in the spread of negative news about China’s society, such as government bribery, more so than joy, sadness and disgust. Another template I have in my arsenal is the story of someone doing something stupid, which is basically the internet’s version of You've Been Framed. The reason we enjoy this type of story comes down to our self-esteem, according Berger. “Reading about stupid things other have done makes us feel better about ourselves by comparison.”
In December 2015, Wilco van Dijk, professor of psychological determinants of economic decision making at Leiden University, asked a group of participants about a high-achieving student who was primed for a successful career. Then, it was revealed that the student had suffered a big setback. The participants were questioned about how they felt when reading about the student’s fate, and those with low self-esteem were more likely to feel threatened by the successful student, and experience pleasure at their setback. Whether it’s a video of someone walking into a post, or a fitness blogger standing up for cellulite – the stories that go viral reveal more then you might think our inner motivations. “Funny cat videos lighten our mood and make us smile,” Berger says. “All this stuff might seem silly, but it often has a deeper psychological motive. The stories we share say a lot about us. What we want to be true, what we think is important. What we share is a signal of our identity, just like the clothes we wear.”
The author's name has not been published at their request
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
