You'll Never Believe How We Got You to Click on This Video

Gotcha! You clicked.

Thank you, by the way.

But what made you click on this,

and not, like, that? Or that? Or that?

Clickbait maybe, but clickbait's not art,

it's science. Here's how it works.

Trick number one: emotional manipulation.

If it gives you feels, you seek it out.

Inspiration, nostalgia, heartbreak, joy,

these will make you click.

You'll never believe how this will make you feel.

(clicking sound)

And that brings us to finding number two: Curiosity.

It killed the cat, but not the kittens.

What are those kittens gonna do on that slide?

What's going on here is what social scientists

call the information gap.

A headline promises to teach you something

you didn't even know you didn't know.

It makes that promise; you want to fulfill it.

So, trick number three: anticipation.

You know that feeling you get when

you're gonna watch those kittens?

That's your limbic system giving you

a little squirt of a neurotransmitter,

like dopamine, telling you that

you're feeling something good.

Now, here's the cool thing,

that actually happens before you see the kittens.

So, a headline that promises, BFFs with Kittens

Gonna do Something Fun, that gives you

the hit even before you read the story.

That is, in other words, clickbait.

But what if it doesn't pay off,

what if the animals aren't cute enough,

well, that brings us to trick number four.

It's called the Gambler's Paradox.

So, you won once, you already got

the limbic hit of liking some headline.

Even if the next one, that listicle that you

have such high hopes for, doesn't quite work out,

your brain thinks maybe the next click might,

or the one after that, or the one after that,

so you just keep pulling the lever.

You'll Never Believe the Eight Crazy Things

that You'll Do to Click the Next Headline.

Not that we at Wired would ever do anything

quite so pander--

Oh, hidden snipers!