Conventions

With every day comes another chance to mingle with new characters. Any occasion from job interviews to first dates is helpful in that such exposure effectively preps us for the next social interaction. Those mind-numbingly fatuous lectures on small talk and table manners may have been life’s bane as a child; but for many, habitual courtesy has ultimately proved more help than hindrance.

One learns to address unfamiliar faces through a mixture of exploration and instruction. We can then attempt to deduce how best to prolong the interaction through drawing evidence from a variety of implicit social cues. For example, if you are alone in a crowded room and a total stranger suddenly appears very interested in talking to you, it can cause feelings of discomfort and anxiety to surface. You may not wish to reciprocate their warmth. On the other hand, if you were in a similar situation – except now the stranger accompanied by someone whom you already knew and trusted – you would think much less of it. Close friends are often treated as blood. Asian relations in particular are in a whole different ballpark. You’ll be at your own wedding trying to figure out why the hell most of your ‘uncles’ aren’t sitting at the table reserved for family.

But is this selective extraversion the best way to deal with the unknown? A friend of a friend isn’t always someone you can cosy up to right away. Of course, having someone in common is often a solid indicator of potential friendship. But that’s all it should be – an indicator.

Too good to be true?

You and I could scroll through YouTube for hours, vexed at the surplus of misleading videos that some machine had the audacity of putting on our recommended list. Writers and editors collaborate to compose such headlines – they are designed to punch through the sea of media and catch the wandering eye. Unfortunately, ‘clickbait’ isn’t just restricted to the virtual world. In fact, it’s not even restricted to objects or things. Humans – humans can be clickbait. Clickbait people. You think you know what you’re in for…till you don’t.

Individuals can employ what’s known as ‘impression management skills’— the ability to modulate any unattractive or irksome traits whilst concurrently emphasising qualities deemed conventionally honourable. Everything from the way they dress and hold themselves, to conversational topics and mutual interests can be adjusted to render a better first impression. These chameleons and their arsenal of attractive traits flourish because your whole perception of them is based around what they want you to see. It’s the golden thumbnail they have chosen as a preview into their whole lives. Beware of the golden thumbnail – it’s just the highlights reel.

Strategies based on attracting attention have been chipped away at ever since organisms first stumbled upon basic interpersonal communication. Now whole industries are backing the whole ‘sell the best version of yourself’ spiel. ‘So Good They Can’t Ignore You’, by Cal Newport is an excellent book detailing how – contrary to Hollywood plot lines – skills often trump passion in the hiring business. Whether you believe this or not, it remains undisputed that there are some great hacks out there when it comes to boosting reputation and credibility. Simply being mindful of such methods can also help us to identify when people happen to be unleashing their inner salesperson on us…

So how do they do it?

Why Lists are Hot

Humans naturally gravitate toward lists because they offer a chance to dismantle intricate concepts and systems of thought. Tim Ferris harnesses the power of lists in his email newsletter, 5 Bullet Friday. Instead of forcing people to actively free up time to read his emails, he has taken the fact his audience are often too busy to absorb long, non-urgent text and capitalised on it by distilling his weekly insights into 5 easy-to-swallow bullet points. The opportunity cost that comes with opening and reading his work has thus been greatly diminished. So many popular articles have taken advantage of lists. Sharp, informative points in quick succession – we love that.

Here’s a further list on the topic of lists:

• They organize information, which your ‘overworked’ brain appreciates.
• They typically feature numbers, which stand out when you’re scanning or scrolling through a long stream of headlines.
• These numbers let you know the general length of the article to help you anticipate how much time and attention it will involve.
• Lists reduce choice and eliminate a lengthy thought process.*

Put it this way: If you were initially hit with a (short) list of ‘good things’ about a person you’d just met, this would invariably create stronger feelings of admiration toward said person than if those same traits had been watered down into essay form. Praise is most effective in short bursts over longer intervals.

Anticipating the Reward

Another way to dissect the inner workings of clickbait is to understand the effect it has on our already overactive imaginations. The idea that some magic pill is the answer to all of life’s problems is mocked out loud – but that doesn’t mean we don’t all secretly wish such things existed. Can we imagine what that would look like? More importantly, would we enjoy entertaining the thought? Of course we would. Here, fantasy transcends reality.

For so-called ‘intelligent life’, humans are remarkably short-sighted. 99% of the time, the build-up toward something big is what makes everyone hold their breath. The event itself can fall short in comparison. when predisposed to such optimism, the anticipation for reward becomes almost too much to bear. We have to bite. We just have to.

The desire for instant gratification occurs when our ancient evolutionary software starts crackling to life. It overrides the ‘rationality’ interface and reboots the default operating system known as ’emotion’.

The Emotion Model

Emotion has long been categorized using a three-dimensional scale. It’s called the Valence-Arousal-Dominance model, the premise is that each emotion comes with a certain level of arousal. Anger and euphoria both come with high levels – sadness does not. The ‘valence’ of emotions can be either positive or negative.

Dominance simply describes the level of control a person has over their feelings. There is a broad spectrum when it comes to this. Fear can be overwhelming at best and paralyzing at worst. At the other end, there are states such as motivation that remain far easier to engineer and regulate.

Here’s an excerpt from a study carried out by researchers Marco Guerini and Jacopo Staiano on the link between emotion and virality.

There is a clear link between virality and particular configurations of valence, arousal and dominance. “These configurations indicate a clear connection with distinct phenomena underlying persuasive communication

We have all come across headlines designed to manipulate emotion, albeit perhaps in a pretty rudimentary way. Titles like “How to make a million dollars overnight” or “lose 4 stone in two weeks with this killer diet” to name but a few. Also, search engines don’t take long to work out what keeps its users coming back for more. Some of your google searches may one day come back to haunt your browser as a pop-up ad. The data-driven nature of the internet means the more you feed it, the more it feeds you.

But according to the same study, simply inducing an emotional state does not guarantee virality. This is predominantly due to the concept of emotional arousal and it’s correlation with the decision-making process. When the rawest of emotions are aroused, people tend to respond. With clickbait articles, that response is a click. It’s an activity that boasts nearly zero friction and immediate satisfaction. Hence, the addict’s fix. The more attention-grabbing the headline, the more opinions it will generate. The more opinion it generates, the more attention it receives. Controversy is king.

Some of the most ‘viral’ mass media plays on hard-hitting feelings like anger, fear, or excitement. Tabloids and celebrity gossip forums have become masters of this craft. Though I previously argued that social cues can be misleading, it’s correct to assume our knack for discerning between characters – ‘good vs bad eggs’ – usually improves with every interaction. But there’s actually cause to believe that said bad eggs won’t even faze us in the end. Even if you are inclined to believe that a certain publication might be clickbait, another part of you may also believe that there’s a chance – however tiny- that some value can still be derived from checking it out. That part usually wins. The emotional appeal renders the subject matter irresistible, making you click. Thanks to the surge in dopamine, we stay easily hooked to shallow content.

Behavioural psychologists refer to this as intermittent reinforcement – compelling you to act in the hope that it will be worth it in the end. The effect on emotional arousal certainly makes dopamine production a key factor.

So that’s why we are attracted to these things. But what next?

How do we cut through the clickbait?

Cutting through the Clickbait

See, although the little photos and icons next to a publication can be enticing enough to have you tap in the first place, there needs to be something to keep you there. Thumbnails appear before we choose to commit to the video. Some part of our rational being would expect the content to be on par. The trick is to listen to that voice and act accordingly.

Likewise, people who treat their characters like putty can only bask in that esteemed glow for a short while before their true form is exposed. They’ll do anything to immediately set off on the right foot with others so as not to draw attention to their hollow psyche.

When seeing someone in person for the first time – especially if their (positive) reputation precedes them- we don’t even have to be very far into the encounter to realize this scenario we sought out isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Never meet your heroes, they say.

If we allow ourselves to believe all the legends and lap up the hype, we too can be tossed aboard the bandwagon of exaggerated reverence. The more we get to know a person, the more we discover the different sides to them. Someone who, at first may seem calm and reserved, might be prone to bursts of anger from time to time. The confident, charismatic types may be in the trenches with imposter syndrome. If we chose to back every single alluring title or profile picture there was, where would that leave our collective integrity?

The next time you find yourself eyeballing a fresh face, hear them out for 5 minutes before asking yourself: ‘Is this something I’d see through to the end’. If not, then recognize that you’ve been lured here under false pretences, or ‘click baited’. Granted, there may be little you can do about unwanted interaction in a professional setting. Nevertheless, if you have deliberated long enough and repeatedly concluded that this particular meeting is of no value to you – walk away.

Based on this response, you’ll find all future interactions will be somewhat within your control. If in doubt, make for the exit.

Remember, the odds are in your favour. We may be overfishing the sea, but there should be plenty more thumbnails in the cloud.

Further Reading:

Deep Feelings: A Massive Cross-Lingual Study on the Relation between Emotions and Virality – pdf article