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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[–] Kintarian@lemmy.world 76 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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

[–] TherapyGary@lemmy.blahaj.zone 32 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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

[–] Kintarian@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

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

[–] Kintarian@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year 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.

[–] TherapyGary@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 year 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

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year 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.

[–] Kintarian@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

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

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year 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.

[–] realitista@lemm.ee 40 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Upvoted without reading just to perpetuate the narrative.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

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

[–] masterofn001@lemmy.ca 26 points 1 year 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.

[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 year ago

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

[–] AmidFuror@fedia.io 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] JoYo@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I disagree, you're missing out.

[–] Cataphract@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year 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)

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] RamblingPanda@lemmynsfw.com 8 points 1 year ago

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

[–] Stalinwolf@lemmy.ca 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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:

[–] mastod0n@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one 2 points 1 year 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.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

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

[–] Unforeseen@sh.itjust.works 17 points 1 year ago
[–] thevoidzero@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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

[–] wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 10 points 1 year ago

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

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 year ago

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

[–] johsny@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

They’re goddam right!

[–] pixxelkick@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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

[–] card797@champserver.net 6 points 1 year ago

Correct. Next.

[–] echindod@programming.dev 5 points 1 year ago

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

[–] vaper@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

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

[–] small44@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago
[–] SlippiHUD@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year 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.

[–] Th4tGuyII@fedia.io 3 points 1 year 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

[–] ByteMe@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Maybe because most of the articles are clickbait anyway

[–] mlg@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year 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.

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org -1 points 1 year 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