{"id":3587,"date":"2016-11-16T04:46:15","date_gmt":"2016-11-16T04:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=3587"},"modified":"2016-11-16T04:46:15","modified_gmt":"2016-11-16T04:46:15","slug":"a-one-time-foray-into-clickbait","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=3587","title":{"rendered":"A One-Time Foray Into Clickbait"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently posted “Complete 1890 Census Released!<\/a>” as a page on this blog. While I am no fan of “click bait” or “fake news,” I posted it to make a point. Stories, genealogical and otherwise, get shared, forwarded, reposted, and rebroadcast in other ways without being completely read or viewed.<\/p>\n

Headlines are written by some with the goal of getting viewers to click on the article. While headlines here may be funny, silly, or inane, I try very hard to avoid headlines that fall into that vague category of “clickbait.”<\/p>\n

It wasn’t posted to be political. It was posted as a reminder. I’m well aware how little of the 1890 US census is extant.<\/p>\n

There’s a reason for concern.<\/p>\n

Often when posts get put on social media platforms, the headline, a key image, and a sentence or two from the article get posted. The rest does not come across whatever “feed” the person is accessing. People like or share articles without reading them\u00a0and sometimes respond to the article without reading it. I’ve often answered questions about a\u00a0post that was specifically addressed in the post itself, sometimes in excruciating detail. I’ve had people respond to posts in ways that made it clear the post had not been completely read.<\/p>\n

Before interacting with a post that appears on social media, read the entire thing. The snippet that comes across your screen may only be a small portion of the entire piece and may give a false impression. It may turn out that there’s much more information in the article that could be discovered if it was only read completely. You may even learn something you did not know.<\/p>\n

And…it may turn out that after reading the article the reader discovers they really don’t even agree with it. In fact the article may contain things which causes the reader to use colorful language or reach for their blood pressure medicine.<\/p>\n

If\u00a0the article is\u00a0shared before it was read, the sharer is letting those with whom it was shared think that they agree with it. And that’s not always the case.<\/p>\n

As always, our goal here is to get readers to think. Agreeing with me is optional.<\/p>\n

\n

And after reviewing some of the extant 1890 census I truly wish it was available for the entire United States and that the “complete” version did not include the small smattering of locations that it does.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently posted “Complete 1890 Census Released!” as a page on this blog. While I am no fan of “click bait” or “fake news,” I posted it to make a point. Stories, genealogical and otherwise, get shared, forwarded, reposted, and rebroadcast in other ways without being completely read or viewed. Headlines are written by some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3587\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}