NASA's Curiosity rover discovers a surprise in a Martian rock

Re:NASA's Curiosity rover discovers a surprise in a Martian ... by II2II on Friday July 19, 2024 @03:21PM (#41010107)

I don't know about most people, but the number of news sources that use information rich headlines suggest that there is a significant number of people who react negatively to clickbait headlines. And I suspect that many of these news sources float clickbait headlines from time to time to test the response of their audience. (Such headlines certainly pop up periodically on most news sources. It is the motive that I am uncertain of.)

Personally, I find clickbait titles lends an air of tabloidness to a publication. I wouldn't be surprised if that is a common feeling. I will also actively avoid, clickbait titles even from trusted sources, simply because it would be detrimental in the long term. Granted, I suspect the active avoidance part is an unusual behaviour.

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Re:NASA's Curiosity rover discovers a surprise in a Martian ... by SoftTalker on Friday July 19, 2024 @08:02PM (#41012772)

Headlines (at least in mass media) have always been a hook to get the reader interested. Back when you had competing newspapers for sale on a stand, people would glance at the headlines and maybe buy a paper if it looked interesting enough.

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Re:NASA's Curiosity rover discovers a surprise in a Martian ... by II2II on Friday July 19, 2024 @08:36PM (#41012982)

There is no doubt that the headline is an important hook. Yet there is a difference between a deliberately vague or misleading hook (which I would consider clickbait), and one that conveys what the article is about.

I don't like watering down the defition of clickbait to mean any headline that gets the reader to click on it. That sort of definition is mostly an excuse for bad behaviour (e.g. misleading the reader).

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