You'll never believe how many likes this joke got....

Want to know why we all fall for clickbait? We'll show you how!

If you’re reading this at all, I apologise now. The only reason you’re here is because of a headline I have no intention of backing up. Not only will I not tell you how many likes the joke got, there isn’t even a joke at all, sorry.

But as you’re here, you might be interested to learn why we all – me included – can’t resist clickbait. And that it’s not because we’re gullible, but because we’re employing a natural instinct to survive. Really.

That’s what psychologists believe, anyway. “We humans are drawn to seek information in our world because it has survival value,” according to a recent article in Psychology Today. “We forage for information much in the way our ancestors foraged for food. This is ‘hardwired’ into us. Clickbait is the promise that unbelievable, provocative or shocking information will be revealed if we just click that link.”

Chemical reaction makes us take the bait

Which is apparently why we reflexively click on stories headlined “Here’s what happens when…” or “10 reasons why you should…” or “You’ll be shocked when you see…” The article, written by American school shrink Mike Brooks, had the somewhat underwhelming headline“What makes clickbait work?” It really ought to have been something like “You won’t believe what these former child psychologists look like now!” – but it drew me in anyway.

Apparently it’s all to do with dopamine, the body’s pleasure hormone, which is released when we expect to receive a reward. The brain makes connections between the activity and the pleasure, which ensures that when we get that pleasure, we repeat behaviour and this is essentially how many addictions start. Dopamine, as well as rewarding us for certain behaviours, makes us crave more (the technical term is incentive salience), effectively creating what Brooks calls an itch that needs to be scratched. Yet here’s the rub – or the scratch: The itch is only eased if we receive the promised pleasure – and because we only get that reward some of the time, and we can’t be certain when or how often that will be, we keep striving for it. This is also called the “Vegas effect” thanks to its impact on gamblers.

Of course, clickbait didn’t invent incentive salience. Newspapers have used unlikely headlines to tease stories since, well, forever. As a Fleet Street sub-editor for decades, I’m steeped in the art of semantic deception and have written many a splash headline for a story that, when you read the details inside, amounts to rather less than the front page promise. It’s not about writing headlines that lie, it’s about writing headlines that actually on close scrutiny tell the bald truth – but the lack of context is designed to make readers assume something completely different. That, my friends, is an art and like many journalists, I can look at a front page headline and intro on a news-stand and immediately understand from the nuanced way these are phrased not only that the real facts are very different from the story the headline suggests, but what those facts actually are.

(There’s another form of reverse clickbait which is also often used unintentionally (I hope) in the arid tumbleweed desert of local television news, but the problem with this is that the stories actually are as turgid as the headlines promise. In a preview of our regional news programme recently – and I swear this is absolutely true – the announcer teased: “…. And why one council is emptying its bins earlier.” I couldn’t help myself, curiosity made me tune in to discover if the story was actually as dull as it sounded. And it was. But the tease worked!)

Read, be conned, click, repeat

But somehow – and sorry if I’m being disingenuous – internet clickbait is in a different league, for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it’s about instant gratification – or at least, resolution. If you’re taken in by a specious headline in a daily newspaper, it’s 24 hours before you are offered the chance to be tricked again. On the internet, and especially if you're swiping through on a phone, you can just click from one bait to the next, over and over and over, forever thinking you’ll read “just one more” before realising you’ve wasted half a day and not done any work. For another thing, at least newspapers tease something they at least try to present to their readers as of importance or interest. Clickbait, by contrast, is largely inconsequential garbage that on close examination is not only not what was promised, but actually of no relevance at all. Worse, the tragedy is that now actual serious newspapers are following suit on their websites, luring readers in to view ludicrous stories that would never have found their way into print.

Mirror Online, for instance, last week ran a story headed: “Woman slammed for telling vegetarian relative she has to eat chicken or go hungry.” A story about an alleged private family argument between sisters-in-law, neither of whom was even named. This is news?

It followed this up the next day with a story titled: “Mum sparks debate by demanding multiple raffle prizes after third winning ticket” about a woman who went viral on Reddit after balking at the draw organiser’s suggestion that having won a third prize, she should not be allowed to claim it. The story, which again contained not a single name or even location for this alleged raffle, continued that hundreds of people online “were quick to debate the fairness of the matter, with many unable to agree who had responded appropriately.” I’m imagining they were probably equally unable to agree or indeed explain quite why they all gave such a f**k.

Click here to save time

There is a wonderful website called Stop Clickbait which intercepts these stupid questions, patiently trawls through the crap to get to the answer “so you don’t have to” and answers them with admirable curtness:

“Nasa responds to rumors (sic) they’ve found alien life.”

“They haven’t.”

“Was Amelia Earhart eaten by coconut crabs?”

“Nope.”

“The real reason dogs follow you into the bathroom will amaze you.”

“They like to be with you.”

It has tempted me to keep up with the times and create my own clickbait. Maybe I'd get more traffic, as they say, if I tried the following.

“What this man inserted into his body shocked his family.”

"Toast – I usually have Shreddies.”

“Wife breaks down after she finally learns what her husband has done.”

"Forgot to put petrol in our car.”

“This weird trick will take years off you!”

“Walk under a bus.”

I hate myself for falling for clickbait, and I’m sure you do too – especially no doubt the link you clicked to get you here. Still, I hope that, like me, you find some consolation knowing this behaviour is not our fault and it’s all about the natural human condition. And maybe knowing that might even help us to resist clicking those links next time.

But in the meantime, I hope you’ll visit again. Because you won’t believe what I’m going to write about next week….

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