The secret to a great headline revealed

Why doomscrolling TikTok bores you

It turns out that making it too easy to move on to the next video actually makes your experience worse:

A fear of missing out or looking for the next best thing is keeping us in unhealthy cycles. “Boredom is closely linked to our attention,” [researcher Katy Tam] continued. “We feel bored when there’s a gap between how engaged we are and how engaged we want to be. When people keep switching through videos, they’re not fully engaging with any one video, and are instead searching for something more interesting.”

People forced to watch one video all the way through experienced less boredom. Counter-intuitive, but fascinating.

• The Guardian covered the research, too.

Clarity = Clicks

Interesting. Research shows that readers like clear headlines:

In our research, typical news readers preferred simple headlines over complex ones. But importantly, we found that those who actually write headlines — journalists themselves — did not.

Yup. Journalists trying to be clever can diminish the reach of their work. The secret of a great headline is clarity + curiosity:

• Clarity so they know what they're getting
• Curiosity to make them click

Rewire your journalism

My friends at journalism.co.uk run one of the most interesting journalism conferences in the UK: news:rewired. I always find it fascinating when I’m able to attend (they keep scheduling it on one of my core lecturing days — I’m trying not to take it personally…), and you’re still just in time to snap up an early bird ticket:

newsrewired booking information

journalism.co.uk

How often do we Brits get Google AI overviews?

Less than one search in every five, apparently:

Now, according to research consultancy Authoritas which has analysed 6,599 keywords across a broad spectrum of categories, AI Overviews are being offered for 17% of queries in the UK and US.

Generally, based on my research, it's for less newsy, more complex queries. But we'll see how that changes in the coming weeks.

Slightly scary thread on Threads

Post by @chriswelch

View on Threads

AI built into camera phones is only going to make the work of verification teams harder.

And finally… Guido turns 20

There’s no doubt that Guido Fawkes has been a force on both the news and politics landscape in the UK, and to hit 20 years means that the site has outlived many of its rivals. To me, it’s nowhere near as influential as it once was. At some point it became more of a Boris/Brexit/Farage pravda than the scurrilous site it used to be.

Who knows, maybe the return of a Labour government to be scurrilous about will make it as essential reading as it used to be. But as long as it’s profitable, that probably matters less to them.

Guido Started On this Day in 2004

As mission statements are all the rage currently and today is the twentieth anniversary of this institution’s founding, we thought co-conspirators might

Guido FawkesEditor