A chart from a 2022 news study flipped my whole read on rage bait

I always figured the angriest stuff got pushed the hardest, so last week I looked up the Reuters Institute's report on engagement in feeds and saw that shares and comments on outrage posts actually drop off faster than on calm explainer posts. What changed my mind was one line in their data: posts that made people feel smart did better over a week than posts that made them mad, which means the algorithm isn't chasing your anger, it's chasing your return visits. So is the feed reflecting us, or are we just giving it too much credit for how we already act?

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willowr966h ago

A friend sent me that same Reuters chart back in March and I sat with it for a while because it matched what I saw on my own page. When I stopped posting hot takes and started posting plain how-to stuff, my repeat readers went up even though single posts got fewer likes. Turns out people come back for stuff that makes them feel sharper, not stuff that fires them up.

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