this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2024
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A new study of 35 million news links circulated on Facebook reports that more than 75% of the time they were shared without the link being clicked upon and read

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[–] [email protected] 76 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I don't read 90% of the articles because they're mostly crap.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

This article is about sharing links without having read the content, not just scrolling past or commenting without reading first

Edit: a more accurate headline would be

Facebook users probably won't read beyond this headline before sharing it, researchers say

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Oh, ok. It seemed they were talking about people only reading the headlines, then sharing with people who only read the headlines.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

At first the author states:

The findings, which the researchers said suggest that social media users tend to merely read headlines and blurbs rather than fully engage with core content, appeared today (Nov. 19) in Nature Human Behavior. While the data were limited to Facebook, the researchers said the findings could likely map to other social media platforms and help explain why misinformation can spread so quickly online.

This implies all social media users. Later it mentions sharing information.

If I cared , I would read the paper. I think the author didn't do a very good job from headline on.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

I know they think it might generalize to other platforms, but there's little evidence to say so, and I doubt the percentage is nearly as bad on other platforms, especially Lemmy (which is the only social media I use, so the only thing relevant to me and many others here)

There's likely also a high percentage of people who form opinions about and comment on headlines without reading the content, but that's not what this paper measured

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Right? Do you expect me to click on 90% of articles?

Social media is a filter. I'm using it to figure out what is worth clicking on.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Politics, sensationalism, click bait, fear mongering. A lot of content is useless to me.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

And there are a bajillion of them, and all completely random. You could read for the rest of your life and not get through a single day's worth of shared articles. That said, you really should read something before sharing it. That part is just stupid.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Upvoted without reading just to perpetuate the narrative.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Can you tell me what the headline said? I never read those (either).

[–] masterofn001 26 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If it makes anyone feel any better, the researchers didn't click the links either.

To determine the political content of shared links, the researchers in this study used machine learning, a form of artificial intelligence, to identify and classify political terms in the link content.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

You're lucky if researchers read the sources they cited beyond the abstract! Lol

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I share Onion headlines without reading the articles. The headline is usually about 90% of the laugh.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I disagree, you're missing out.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Seriously, it reminds me of SNL sometimes. You know what you're expecting but they hit you with some really good zingers sometimes (Bill Burr SNL - Rorschach Test)

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Maybe they are just aware of clickbait bullshit? Make headlines deliver on the payload of the article.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

Users hate these media tricks to get attention. Number six will shock you!

[–] Stalinwolf 19 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Me attempting to take the time to read twenty poorly formatted articles per day, broken up into fourteen paragraphs each and seperated by what I assume are intended to be hundreds of intrusive ads and completely diverging from what the headline baited me into thinking this ad (er.. article..) was about in the first place:

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago
[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Doing everything out of the spite is the best reason. It's why I am going to outlive all my enemies and friends.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

That does seem to be an effective strategy given all the spiteful old people in power these days.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Psychologists say you came to comment section just because of that heading.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

"No balls, you won't," researchers suggest.

[–] avidamoeba 8 points 2 months ago

I didn't read beyond the title, but I did comment.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

They’re goddam right!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Here's the direct link to the paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-024-02067-4 And they shared their code used to query the data here: https://github.com/geocomplexity/SwoCMetaURL/blob/main/Code.md

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Correct. Next.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Yeah, because I know this, and the research it self doesn't sound interesting to me.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

I wonder how many of us will read this article lol (I haven't).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago
[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

This headline is barely even about the article. The blurb provides enough context to know what the content is about atleast.

But apparently most links on social media don't even do that.

It's accidentally proving its point, much like that meme where the paper on the inaccessibility of science is being denied by a paywall.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

In addition, analyses with 2,969 false uniform resource locators revealed higher shares and, hence, SwoCs [Shares without Clicks] by conservatives (76.94%) than liberals (14.25%), probably because, in our dataset, the vast majority (76–82%) of them originated from conservative news domains.

Damn, never would've seen that one coming /s

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Maybe because most of the articles are clickbait anyway

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Jokes on you I read the summary which is totally enough to cover the actual content of the article with no lack of detailed information whatsoever.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago

I don't click links specifically for this reason... Why would I feed surveillance machine for fake news slop paid by elites to shape my opinion.

Commom sense 101