AbstractIs it possible to defeat magic with magic?Over the years, the changes in online content have made misinformation very ubiquitous and wide-spreading, especially in the early stage of COVID-19, online content regarding vaccination, origin of the virus, government conspiracy, etc entrain with a variety of true and false information, causing the result that governments and medical institutions were impervious to control the epidemic in an effectible way. Sooner or later, misinformation in the online world is one of the reasons for inflaming the resistance of people towards the correct information. Why is the power behind online misinformation so great? In addition to conspiracy theories behind them, whether their dissemination methods are hints that promote the transmission of misinformation? How if we apply the techniques from misinformation spreading and bring it on promoting correct information, could this lead us to a new feasibility for promoting correct and healthy information? On account of finding a new method to promote correct information, I tested one of the techniques which was prevailing in transmission of misinformation during COVID-19 – clickbait, to investigate the methodology behind increasing user engagement was whether possible to be used back on the right track to boost on correct information. Based on the curiosity gap principle of cognitive bias in the use of clickbait, the experiment was applied in a familiar social network alike environment, with the articles of correct and healthy information, instead of fake and misinformation. The results not only reflect our audience was lack of faith in any article with clickbait involved, but also show a stronger attitude than the authenticity of the article. Comparing with the previous experiment and study of clickbait, the experiment shows a clear result that online articles with clickbait conditions were significantly not being trusted and credited, no matter if the content of the article was true or not. Opposite with some previous clickbait studies, it did not bring us a positive result of audience reaction. The use of cognitive bias in designing content to draw people's attention should be explored in more detail in future research. IntroductionEvery year, the spread of online misinformation causes countless contradictions and disputes. The speed and scope of information disseminated by online media are often difficult to control, and the authenticity and reliability of information are sometimes questionable. Misinformation on social media, including unconfirmed and misleading information, can cause social confusion and have negative consequences regardless of whether the person propagating it intends to mislead others (Karduni, 2019; Iizuka et al., 2021). Especially during COVID-19, the spread of misinformation brought us severe threats to public interests, and thus relied on increasing the demand for new social media policies that can aid policymakers in order to combat misinformation with evidence based decisions (Kyza et al., 2020). However, even though there are various new methods coming up with the combat, the speed at which it spreads is still higher than the speed at which it can be countered (Pourghomi et al., 2017; Iizuka et al., 2022; Kaur & Gupta, 2022). Thus the importance of increasing the rate and reach of accurate information dissemination becomes evident, and how to increase the methods of disseminating accurate information is a topic that needs to be explored. In studying the misinformation dissemination, based on the previous research, misinformation on social media generally has longer titles, more technical, fewer stop words, more capitalised and catchy words, and emotional content is more likely to influence the audience to promote retweeting behaviour (Singh, 2019; Liu, 2022). Content with emotional appeal often attracts more attention from readers than neutral content, therefore content with emotional appeal is more commonly spread widely on social media. Besides, regarding the spread of misinformation, some studies have also found that fragmented information disseminated through social media and people’s tendency to believe seemingly true but false knowledge are both reasons for the spread of misinformation (Beck, 2022; Muhammed & Mathew, 2022; Ansari et al., 2022; Zollo & Quattrociocchi, 2018). The fragmented information on social media can lead people to lack complete context or factual sources, resulting in misunderstandings of the truth. In addition, people often unintentionally believe seemingly true but actually false knowledge that is widely spread on social media. Since this method is effective in spreading false information, if the same techniques are used to spread accurate information, will it also be effective? This is precisely what this article will discuss and research.Introduction to Clickbait and Information DisseminationClickbait, since its first existence, has been controversial regarding its effectiveness and influence. Many research with various experiment conditions have tested out how the audience will react to the article and content with clickbait style. Even before “clickbait” was termisaised, exaggerated and fascinating articles and titles were bound to have more mass appeal. However clickbait will include more mechanisms for letting people fall into its trap. Regardless of how it has been used in the article, researchers have found that the interaction is when readers do not receive complete and sufficient information, thus triggering cognitive bias mechanisms such as curiosity bias or confirmation bias to attract and engage users (Jung et al., 2022; Gothankar et al., 2021). Besides, emotional use in clickbait articles has also been demonstrated to increase user engagement. However, not all about clickbait’s entire workings is clearly known yet (Potthast et al., 2016; Chakraborty et al., 2017; Ross et al., 2018). In determine the characteristic of clickbait article, common clickbait titles often involve simplification, spectacularization, negativity, forward referencing (referring to something mentioned in the article), questions, and numbers, along with the use of consecutive words or symbols (e.g., ”I,” ”You,” ”Everyone,” ”…,” ”!!!,” ”???”). Phrases with a high intensity of positive emotions are also considered indicators of clickbait, as they employ vague implications to describe the content and attract user clicks (Chakraborty et al., 2016; Kuiken et al., 2017; Biyani et al., 2016; Jung et al., 2022). On the other hand, the relationship between the content of the article and the willingness to share it has also been demonstrated. Some early studies have shown that emotional content (such as humor, inspiration, or anger-inducing) and practical information (such as guides or news articles) are more likely to be shared on social media compared to other types of content (Berger & Milkman, 2012; Bakshy et al., 2011; Dillard & Shen, 2013). So et al. (2016) analysed 2,583 tweets related to obesity and weight loss, it was mentioned that in specific types of humour, puns, rejoinders, and parodies related to weight are more likely to be shared. Specifically, tweets using puns were retweeted most frequently (22.2%), followed by repartee (18.1%) and parody (12.1%). And Arica et al. (2022) analysed 1,280 users by questionnaire and their study found that tourists were more likely to share content on social media when they perceived the content to be objective and reliable, and when the content provided practical value or emotional appeal. These findings highlight the importance of understanding the relationship between content characteristics and sharing behaviour in the context of social media. To address the need for a deeper understanding of how clickbait techniques affect audience behaviour on social media platforms, Jung et al. (2022) analysed a large number of clickbait on social media and Facebook posts to understand their impact on user engagement. By comparing the usage of seven indicators in titles and content, namely ”average word length,” ”number of words,” ”contains questions,” ”unusual punctuation,” ”typical clickbait phrases,” ”Unigrams,” and ”Sentiment,” the results showed that 33% (14 out of 42) of the studied items demonstrated the expected outcome, indicating that clickbait indeed performs well in capturing attention and eliciting sharing when the title or content correspond accordingly. This finding suggests that clickbait, when used effectively with emotionally-driven and curiosity-inducing titles and content, can successfully capture attention and promote sharing among users. Continuously, in the significant result, posts that use unusual punctuation in the titles show a 55% higher user response (including likes, love, haha, wow, sad, and angry reactions) and a 2.5-fold increase in shares and comments. However, when it comes to the usage of unusual punctuation in the content, the response decreases by 21.5%, and there is no statistically significant effect on shares and comments. Referring to the research by Molyneux & Coddington (2020), it is suggested that content written in a clickbait style may be perceived by users as low-quality commodity news, leading to negative and distrustful attitudes. Compared with its former use on traditional media like newspapers, clickbait is a more straightforward method on social media to attract the audience to click in, but abandon the quality and credibility of the article. It is increasing in use in some regions regardless the effectiveness of itself is considered less than before (Rahman & Mamun, 2024; Wanda et al., 2021; Lockwood, 2016). Although over exaggerating titles are usually used in misinformation, some journals or reputative media also considered it as a strategy to catch eyeballs (Washington Post, 2017), which means clickbait does not only exist in misinformation or low quality media. As a double-edged sword, its function can apply on both sides of information dissemination, and amazingly perform on attracting the public’s attention.Conflict Information and misinformation on social mediaAmong all information online, every user will always have a chance to get exposed to new certain kinds of information or misinformation without any context before, where conflicting information may receive than their common knowledge or contradictory information presented repeatedly on the same topics but with different arguments, in particular, users are more likely to be exposed to conflicting information on popular topics. Conflict information was found on varieties of health related topics, most apparently in the pandemic years, when all contradictory statements were filled on the internet regarding the virus, vaccination, or even the action of the government’s solution. In the investigation of conflict information within health related topics, it is suggested that mass media as its easy accessibility and constant flow of information has increased the visibility of conflicting information, particularly for highly debated issues in which patients are actively seeking out information (Carpenter et al., 2016; Nagler et al., 2019; Nagler et al., 2021). This increased media coverage may naturally lead to more public attention and discussion. Besides the misinformation purposely created and intended to spread malicious, some of the ”correct information” on the Internet is also incomplete information that is taken out of other contexts. After being taken out of context through different media, the content of the contradictory will begin to spread and amplify by the social media platform (Nagler, 2014), then it may turn to misinformation at some stage during the dissemination. And the consequence of letting misinformation spread could be huge. During the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa in 2014, misinformation shared through social media had negative impacts on public perceptions and trust in health authorities, making epidemic control more difficult. Misinformation, such as the belief that Ebola was a hoax or conspiracy theory, caused some individuals to ignore public health warnings and avoid seeking medical treatment, and others believed in traditional remedies or untested drugs as effective treatments for Ebola, leading to dangerous self-medication practices (Hossain et al., 2016). When it came to COVID-19 pandemic, the novel nature of the virus and the lack of familiarity with its pathophysiology created favourable conditions for the proliferation of misinformation. Moreover, heightened levels of fear and uncertainty among individuals, coupled with increased reliance on social media platforms as a primary source of information during extended periods of stay-at-home orders, have significantly contributed to the amplification and dissemination of false narratives thus to have more serious impacts on both society and individuals (Tasnim et al., 2020; Ahmed & Rasul, 2022; Pennycook et al., 2020). Therefore, an excessive amount of information from multiple sources, which makes it difficult for social media users to distinguish between correct and incorrect information and makes them susceptible to non-scientific answers that influence their judgement (Adhanom, 2020; Clark et al., 2022).Cognitive Biases and Limitations of Online Information ProcessingAs of 2024, the average daily social media usage of internet users worldwide amounted to 143 minutes per day (Jo Dixon, 2024). Humans are bombarded with massive amounts of information every day, however our ability to process information is not unlimited. When the amount of information exceeds our cognitive load capacity, it may lead to biases in information filtering and judgment (Arnold et al., 2023; Kulge et al., 2020; Ahmed et al., 2011; Farhoomand & Drury, 2002) . According to Pfaffinger, et al., research in 2020, cognitive load is involved in mobile use, including browsing social media, checking messages, or even using it while driving, existing in both aware or unaware mobile use. Particularly in social media platforms, users tend to focus on the content with sharp and emotional information, but not reading carefully in the detail or verifying the credibility of the information. In this circumstance, an attractive title or content will be easier to be noticed but the fact based and tedious content will be neglected. When faced with a lot of information or information overloaded, people tend to select and process information based on emotional content rather than functional content, especially in social media platforms (Nielsen & Sarason, 1981; Bargh, 1982; Kim et al., 2007; Pirraglia et al., 2023). In Pirraglia et al., research in 2023, they have analysed the effectiveness of Facebook advertising and found out that emotional videos generated significantly more views and engagement (likes, comments, and shares). This suggests that emotional content is more likely to attract and hold viewers’ attention, even in a B2B context where rational decision-making is typically emphasized. Therefore, to the contents that drive emotions like fear, anger, or curiosity, no matter if they are accurate or not, it is more attractive and viral than neutral content. For example, misleading clickbait headlines centre on emotions, further weakening users’ ability to think critically. The Internet is like an amplifier of information, and the user’s behaviour and information selection based on the above cognitive limitations will only become more polarized, which explains why well-educated users can still become A victim of misinformation, even government and health organisations keep trying to promote correct information. Understanding these limitations not only helps sort out the shortcomings of human information processing, but also provides inspiration for designing more effective information dissemination strategies, such as how to find a balance between attracting attention and maintaining accuracy, especially in the health information.Research Gap and ObjectivesClickbait, despite its negative associations, is indeed potential as a tool to promote accurate information among the overwhelming information on social media. Its attention-grabbing features can be leveraged to direct users toward scientifically verified or beneficial content, particularly in health-related contexts. For instance, emotionally engaging headlines might enhance user engagement with public health campaigns or adherence to evidence-based practices to achieve the purpose of increasing the correct information dissemination. While concerns about credibility persist, as clickbait is often associated with incomplete or misleading information (Jung et al., 2022; Chen et al., 2015), the overwhelming volume of information on social media has shifted priorities toward metrics like click-through rates (CTR) and browsing rates. This presents an opportunity to explore clickbait’s potential in fostering effective information dissemination when its negative effects are mitigated. The feature of utilising exaggerated, vague, or ambiguous statements to generate enough curiosity among readers that they feel compelled to click on the link to fill their knowledge gaps, which is also considered as a cognitive bias, and often participates in the rapid speed of misinformation dissemination. For example, a headline like ”You Won’t Believe How This Simple Trick Transformed Her Health” creates an information gap” by hiding key details to arouse user curiosity and encourage them to click. This use of manipulation is what attracts people to click on articles and read more content (Chen et al., 2015; Wilding et al., 2018; Zuhroh & Rakhmawati, 2019; Chakraborty et al., 2016; Loewenstein, 1994). Hence it came with the first hypothesis that was expected to be seen during the experiment.
