Maybe people aren’t so shallow after all
Since so much of what I read is about the world going to hell in a handbasket, it was a happy contrast when I read a piece by John Tierney in the New York Times relating a study by University of Pennsylvania researchers of what Times articles are the most frequently emailed. It turns out that sex and celebrities are not the focus after all. Tierney writes:
The results are surprising — well, to me, anyway. I would have hypothesized that there are two basic strategies for making the most-e-mailed list. One, which I’ve happily employed, is to write anything about sex. The other, which I’m still working on, is to write an article headlined: “How Your Pet’s Diet Threatens Your Marriage, and Why It’s Bush’s Fault.”
But it turns out that readers have more exalted tastes, according to the Penn researchers, Jonah Berger and Katherine A. Milkman. People preferred e-mailing articles with positive rather than negative themes, and they liked to send long articles on intellectually challenging topics.
Could it be that we might escape from reducing all thought to Twitter size?
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.