Headline-itis is an understanding of the world based entirely around headlines (short summaries inherently lacking nuance, context, or any of the signifiers necessary for determining truth or meaning).
It is made much worse by social media algorithms tuned to promote outrage.
It is made much worse by social media algorithms tuned to promote outrage.
"Man jailed because his brakes failed" creates far more outrage than "Man jailed for killing multiple people after deliberately driving past multiple ditch zones that could have avoided the tragedy", and so THAT'S the version of reality that is aggressively spread by algorithm.
This doesn't even require malicious intent on the part of the headline writers (although it can; and there are obvious incentives for them to do so).
There are tens of thousands of headlines being written every day on hundreds of news sites. Natural selection will pluck out the ones most likely to generate outrage.
Blaming the "algorithm" here isn't exactly accurate, either. The algorithms are tuned for engagement. We collectively CHOOSE to have outrage be the thing we engage with.
We could instead choose joy or beauty or anything else. But we choose outrage.
We are the algorithm.
We could instead choose joy or beauty or anything else. But we choose outrage.
We are the algorithm.
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