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7 Ways Articles with Lists Are So Popular

Have you ever noticed how articles listing a number of items are very popular?

For example today on MSN.com:
"9 Quick Tips to Lower Your Cholesterol"
"7 Tips to Keep in Mind Before Paring Up with Another Guest"
"9 Foods That Kill Abdominal Fat"
"365 Things To Do Before You Die"
"10 Off-Road-Ready SUV's"
All of these articles are on the first page!

For me it's a compulsion to see what's on the list.  I'll never find out if I don't read the article.
Take "9 Quick Tips to Lower Your Cholesterol"  How come there are 9 quick ways?  Are the other ways slower?  I know some ways to lower my cholesterol but maybe I should check out the list.  I have to force myself to not look at what's on these lists.

After a while it starts to annoy me but when I realize what's happening I have to smile.

By the way I lied about having "7" ways in the title of this post.  I thought it would catch your attention.  If you like I can make up another six ways to complete the list but I would only be faking it.  I bet many of these articles with lists are faking it.

Comments

  1. I'm a sucker for lists too! I will almost always take a look at the 10 best or the 10 worst of anything :-)

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  2. So I'm not the only one who falls for lists! When I look at the TV channel list of programs I'm tempted to keep looking even after I see a show I'd like to watch. The list is so long it takes about 10 minutes to read them all. After all that I wind up missing the start of the program I wanted to watch.
    "When I was a kid" (makes me sound like an old man) we had channels 2,4,5,7,9,11 & 13. All paid for by commercials. Now it costs a lot of money for hundreds of channels with nothing worth watching.
    Sometimes it's more entertaining to read the list of programs than to watch some of the shows.
    I've decided to watch TV only late at night while I'm in bed and too tired to do something more worthwhile.

    ReplyDelete

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