It's all over Facebook:
"Only genius can see this!"
"What kind of dog are you"
"Who's your celebrity look-alike?"
"What your birth month says about you"
"What will you look like at 100?"
"Can you spot the difference? Almost nobody can do this!"
They seem like harmless fun but here are some reasons why you don't want to do this:
First a Little Background:
Facebook has been systematically limiting the reach we have with our posts for years. They only show a tiny percentage of our friends, fans, or group members each of our posts. That makes more work for fan page owners and group leaders who want to make sure their posts are shown to at least a significant number of their followers.
Facebook also "rewards" pages/groups whose posts are shared a lot so, in order to increase the odds that Facebook will do this, page and group owners try their best to post content that will intrigue, shock, anger, or make people feel so good that they want to share them. The more people share, the more Facebook will show more of their posts and to more of their followers.
What's the best way to make people feel good enough to share a post? Make it so incredibly easy that they get 100% on a fun quiz! So, they create subject lines that are wildly eye-catching and fun sounding quizzes that are incredibly easy or rigged to give the quiz taker a great (or 100%) score. I know this because I answered one question when my finger slipped and I clicked the wrong answer and still got 100% on the quiz.
It's clickbait really. You click on the quiz expecting to find something difficult and either are disappointed that it isn't hard or you are so impressed with how you guessed all the right answers about something you really didn't know too much about. Either way is fine with the page or group owner because you're likely to share it as did almost all the other quiz masters and Facebook rewards them by showing that and other posts to more people.
Here's what this does for YOU:
1. Viruses: many a Facebook clickbait post has been said to have viruses and clicking on them (or anything in Messenger) may do your computer harm. It's never a good idea to click on these things.
2. You see more of these posts and less of your friends' posts in your newsfeed.I can't tell you how many times I see friends posting that they don't see many of their freinds' posts in their newsfeed anymore. This is because what you like, comment on, and react to are what Facebook shows you more of. The more you take the quizzes, comment on them, and post them, the more of them you will see in your newsfeed. The more you see of these clickbait posts, the less you see of your friend's posts to comment on and share. The less you interact with your friends' posts, the less Facebook will show them to you. It's a vicious cycle that ends with you taking quizzes all day and missing a friend who needs prayer or a helping hand or had a praise report or wrote something incredibly insightful and helpful...like this! :D
More insightful and educational posts coming next month! Stay tuned!