Why Are People So Dumb? – Click bait is Ruining the Internet

If you have social media, or been exposed to the internet for any length of time for that matter, then it is highly likely that you have been overwhelmed by click bait. Those titles which are designed to reel you in, titles which are incredibly catchy, but they are nothing like the article that they are supposed to represent. In fact, in many cases, you won’t get any information at all (unless you pay). So, why is this click bait so rampant, and how is it ruining social media? Well, that is what we are going to take a little peek at on this page.

The thing is, and no offence to you as I say this, people are ‘dumb’. They take a little peek at the title of an article and do not bother to read it. They may even make comments based upon just what that title says (people are lazy). They then proceed to share it, maybe in a bid to stir up the pot (political articles, or even religious articles, are one of the worst types of click bait around). This then gets read by their friends and family, no doubt those who have similar views which, in turn, also gets passed around without being read. Before you know it, thousands (if not millions) of people have read that title but not the article. Their viewpoint changed because they are just plain lazy.

Click bait is ruining social media. You can’t login to social media right now without seeing those short, snappy titles. You then have to deal with all the, quite often, ignorant comments that result from that too. Basically, you are just going to be inundated with spam.

It is also ruining ‘standard’ articles. More and more news agencies, and even blogs, are veering towards click-bait style articles because that is exactly what is delivering them hits. The older, longer form articles just are not cutting it any more. Basically, the quality of online journalism is going down the pan. When most people get their news from online, this is not going to be good. After all, when you read articles which have been cut down to no more than a couple of lines, you are not really going to be educating yourself too much. You are just going to get those short snippets which are designed to get you to click them, nothing more. This, in turn, is going to contribute to a population which is even more uneducated when it comes to the news.

Sadly, there is very little that can be done about the click bait trend at the moment. Social media sites, in particular Facebook, have put a lot of effort into ensuring that some click bait links are blocked, particularly those that are displayed as adverts or sponsored posts. However, sadly, there is only so much that can be done. As long as people continue to share these posts, they are never going to cease. In fact, I am willing to wager that the problem is just going to end up getting a whole lot worse.