Click Bait

Looking for ways in which the Internet can consume more of my time.

I learned a new term in the past year. No, not Brexit. Well, that too. I'm talking about "click bait." Apparently, anyone who has ever had a website desires as much traffic as possible to visit that site. We live in a world of numbers. How many Monday mornings do we wake up and learn that a movie "only" made $18 million over the weekend and is considered a bomb. I wonder what they would consider the balance in my checkbook? But I digress.

So, I'm minding my own business trying to educate myself to what's going on in the world. The news is too depressing. I find my eye drawn to an intriguing title of an article. For example: Eight foods you should not be eating. Okay, I'm hooked. And I click on the site (first mistake). Invariably, I don't even find the beginning of what I'd like to know. The headline was clear. I want to know what I should not be eating. I am consumed with fear that my diet consists entirely of those 8 things. I break out in a sweat and start to feel poorly.

But all I'm staring at is a screen that takes two hundred words to say what has just been said in the headline. At the bottom of that boring paragraph, it says, "Click here to change your life (or some such drivel of a claim)." So I click... again.

What I read now seems so obvious to me. I'm muttering to myself, "I know I shouldn't be eating that." It's at this point that a few expletives might pass my lips. But the article predicts even more dire news ahead. I'm wondering to myself if peanut butter is on the list. I mean, if I shouldn't be eating peanut butter I might as well go crawl in a hole somewhere and die.

I reach the bottom of that page and now I read, "People don't believe that the second item on our list could shorten their life by 10 years." Wow! I do a quick calculation. I'm almost 70. If it's a food I've been eating (please don't let it be peanut butter), does that mean my time is almost up?

My hand is quivering as I grip the mouse. Should I click or not?

I realize that I've already invested three page clicks, and if I follow through with their entire list I will have succumbed to their "click bait" for a total of 9 or 10 pages. I quickly exit the page, and am able to breathe again.

The following morning, I see another interesting article. This time, the title is 23 places that should be on your bucket list. OH, NO!!!

Disclaimer: Clicking on blog posts, especially named "Life's a Mystery" will not cause severe harm to your health. Just sayin'.

Social Media and Writers

Yes, that's the Facebook logo to the left. I'm having a love - hate relationship with Facebook right now. I look at it a couple of times a day, and it seems to take longer each time to scroll through all of the posts on my "news feed." I've spent as long as a half hour to get through all of the "new" posts since the last time I looked.

I'm sure Facebook loves that I'm spending more time with them, which means they can tell their advertisers that people are spending X amount of time on the site, thus justifying what the advertiser pays for the exposure.

Unfortunately, the "news" I'm really interested in takes up about 2 minutes or less of my time. Why? Because I keep seeing repeats of the same posts that I've already read and reacted to. But each time another person "reacts" that same post appears again. Grrrr!

I enjoy following my friends, but that doesn't mean that I like everything that they enjoy. If Joe Schmoe on my friend's list "likes" or "reacts" to a post about a topic in which they are interested, It pops up on my news feed with the caption "Joe Schmoe reacted to this" or "commented on this."

I want to see pictures of Joe's kids, or dogs, or to hear that he got a promotion at work, etc. But if he "liked" a lodge in the Rocky Mountains because he's planning to go there next November for vacation, I honestly don't care. Seriously, I don't.

I also have a diverse group of friends. Not all of my friends share my political beliefs (nor do I expect them to), but if they "like" or "comment" on a post of political persuasion with which I strongly disagree, at best it prompts me to roll my eyes. I try not to think about unfriending in situations like that. I'm more likely to think of giving Facebook a vacation until after the election. :-)

I'm also sure that I've liked a few posts that have caused sneers among my "friends."

But social media is also a cost effective way of getting the word out to people that I have a short story to share, or about a great review I received on one of my books, or the fact that a new book is about to be published, or the performance dates of my Ben Franklin one-man show.

I also TRY very hard not to use social media to "push" my books on my friends and acquaintances to the point where everyone sighs and mutters under their breath, "Ray, give it a rest." :-)

How about you? Any thoughts to share about your reaction - especially to authors - via social media? After all, "Life's a Mystery."