On the social media platform Facebook, a frequent presence of content related to dark news events, such as murders, accidents, violence, and other tragic cases, has been observed.
Some of these publications are distributed by sites that are not media, but that use these events to attract the attention of users and direct them to articles on relevant websites.
Examples of this practice are some Facebook posts that deal with dark news events, distributed by pages that do not function as media (see some of the examples). here, here, here, here, here e here).
But what drives people to click and read so much of such content?
One explanation is related to a tendency known in psychology as the “negativity bias” (negativity bias). This means that people tend to pay more attention to negative information, especially that related to danger, threat, or serious events.
This trend is also explained by people's need to understand the risks that surround them and to be informed about situations that may affect their safety.
What do the studies say?
A study published in the scientific journal “Nature Human Behavior”, titled “Negativity drives online news consumption” (Negativity drives online news consumption), analyzed the impact of negative language on readers' interest in online news.
Researchers found that headlines containing more words with negative connotations are more likely to attract clicks than those with positive wording (see here).
Another explanation is related to people's curiosity about serious events. In psychology, this interest is known as "morbid curiosity" and includes the desire to learn about events related to death, violence, crime, and dangerous situations.
Another research published in the journal "British Journal of Psychology", entitled "Out of the dark - Psychological perspectives on people's fascination with true crime" (Coming Out of the Dark – Psychological Perspectives on People's Fascination with True Crimes), examined the reasons why people are drawn to true crime content.
According to researchers, this interest is related, among other things, to curiosity, the desire to understand criminal behavior, and the effort to recognize potential risks (see here).
These psychological tendencies can be exploited by sites that aim to increase their number of clicks and audience on social networks.
Headlines that warn of serious events but do not provide key information create curiosity in readers. Phrases like “Serious event,” “Country shaken,” or “New details from tragedy” can prompt the user to click to understand what happened.
In this way, people's natural interest in tragic events is transformed into an opportunity to generate website traffic and increase the visibility of publications.
This is not to say that every publication about the dark chronicle is problematic. However, when such events are used primarily to attract clicks, without providing complete, accurate and contextual information, readers may be faced with content that is more intended to arouse curiosity than to inform.
For this reason, it is important that users do not just stop at the headlines that appear on Facebook, but also check the source and content of the information they are reading.