Several years ago research emerged highlighting that many people readily share articles on Twitter that they have never read, with the headline seemingly sufficient to prompt us to forward it on.  The study underlined the impact social media was having on our reading habits.  It’s a finding reinforced by new research from Ohio State University, which finds that when we “like” an article, we tend to spend less time actually reading it.

This phenomenon appeared to be strongest when the article agreed with the reader’s point of view.  The researchers believe their findings clearly illustrate how the way we interact with content changes our consumption of it.

“When people are voting whether they like or dislike an article, they’re expressing themselves. They are focused on their own thoughts and less on the content in the article,” they explain.  “It is like the old phrase, ‘If you’re talking, you’re not listening.’ People were talking back to the articles without listening to what they had to say.”

What’s more, the ability to like an article also appeared to further entrench our views on controversial topics when those articles agreed with their own views.  This appeared to occur even when people spent less time actually reading the content.

Showing approval

A few hundred participants were asked for their views on a number of controversial topics, including abortion and gun control.  They were then shown four versions of an online news website, each covering one of the topics.  Each of the web pages included the headline and first paragraph of four articles, two of which had a liberal slant, and two of which had a conservative slant.  Clicking on the headline would take the reader to the full article.  Two of the websites had banners on them saying that voting was enabled for the article, while the others had a banner saying that voting was disabled.

Each participant was given a few minutes to browse their particular website, with the researchers measuring how much time they spent on each story and any votes they cast.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, people spent more time reading articles they agreed with, but strangely, they spent 12 seconds less time reading those articles if they could also vote.

“Rather than increasing engagement with website content, having the ability to interact may actually distract from it,” the researchers complain.

The results revealed that when people were able to vote, this voting pattern proved as influential as their actual reading time.  For instance, if they stopped reading and upvoted the article, this further bolstered their attitude towards the article.

“It is important that people’s views still became stronger by just having the opportunity to vote,” the authors conclude.  “When they had the opportunity to vote on the articles, their attitudes were getting more extreme with limited or no input from the articles themselves. They were in an echo chamber of one.”