Can You Resist Clicking On This?

-_-

LOL you actually clicked this? wow you people are easily fooled by CLICKBAIT

Hahaha you've been fooled

Thankfully this clickbait wasn't a dangerous one. But in all seriousness clickbait can be dangerous

Nowadays almost everyone of all ages uses social media. Most people receive information through their trusty social media. Popular social media known are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube, etc.

Can you define clickbait? yea, you know what it is but you can't really define it can you. Basically, Basically, clickbait is tricking social media users into clicking a link in order to trick them into a chain of clickbait. To elaborate, clickbait headlines usually aimed to exploit the 'curiosity gap,' providing just enough information to make readers curious about the topic, but not enough to satisfy their curiosity without clicking through to the linked content.

For example, on YouTube, there is a popular YouTuber called Logan Paul. He has over 16million subscribers. that's a LOT. FYI subscribers are basically fans and since YouTuber is an official occupation, Logan Paul has become a millionaire! The amount of money YouTubers earn depends on how many views they get on their videos. In order for Logan Paul to become a millionaire, he uses clickbait in his titles collecting millions of views on his YouTube videos.

Here is an example of his clickbait titled videos,

"MY ASSISTANT GOT PREGNANT IN MY HOUSE"

"Kong ran away"

"THE LOGANG MADE HISTORY. LOL. AGAIN"

Along with these clickbait titles, the thumbnails of the videos are also very exaggerated just like the clickbait titles. The content of the video is exactly what clickbait is. They contain what the title says but takes only a minute of his 10-20 minute videos. which means his videos are most of the time about a different topic than the title.

Thanks to clickbait, Logan Paul has become a millionaire and continues to grow as a YouTuber.

So how is clickbait dangerous you? You ask. Here are the two major dangers of clickbait.

There are mainly 2 dangers to clickbait.

The 2 major danger of clickbait is Validity and Viral.

1. Validity

With clickbait, it is common that there are reliability issues with validity. Not everything you see online is true. They can be lying to you, and often times you end up with false information lead from click bait.

2. Viral

This goes for every human being. Just because it is viral, it does not mean it's true. Let's say you're on Facebook, and you see a post that says "human's can fly" with an image of a flying person, and the post has millions of like. The post is going viral, but does that mean people can fly? Of course not. Even though it may be viral it does not give proof to its validity.

So coming back to the example of Logan Paul, validity would mean how can we know that the title is what the content of his video is going to be about. And Viral would mean just because his video has millions of views it wouldn't mean that his contents match the title, I can possibly be that his clickbait worked well, that many social media users fell for it.

As we like to call it "internet surfing", being exposed to false information will lead you further down to misunderstanding the world.

So How Can We Identify Clickbait?

Clickbait is very easy to identify but you can't avoid it even though you know it's clickbait. But as long as you are aware of what clickbait is and its danger it is possible to avoid dangers. Clickbait is what drags you into reading the article. Clickbait that has a high percentage of getting clicked are often times subjective.

Here are common clickbait elements

A list

“You” or “I” or a personal story

An animal

Trending/breaking news topics

Pop culture or food reference

A new or unknown concept

An element of shock and excitement

To be statistical 79 percent of clickbait titles has an element of shock. 67 percent contained a new or unknown concept, 63 percent contained references to trending topics, another 63 percent contained references to pop culture or food, 29 percent contained “You” or “I” or some personal story, and 17 percent were listicles.

Clickbait uses very exaggerated language. For example, "it was crazy..." "I was blown away..." "You won't believe..." By using exaggerated language it stimulates the reader's brain into wandering what continues and makes the reader interested in the content of the clickbait. The use of capitalized letters is also very commonly seen in clickbait, such as the example from the YouTuber Logan Paul as said before.

To summarize clickbait identification is fairly easy. You just need to look out for exaggerated languages, and capitalized words. These factors are very commonly seen in clickbait titles. Try to create your own clickbait and see if people would click on them. See if you learned anything about clickbait.