My name is Henry Chan and I am a sophomore in ECE. I come from New York City. I love walking around the city, visiting museums, relaxing in parks, and hanging out on the beaches. I also enjoy eating. Ithaca is a bit smaller than NYC, but I'm glad that I'm still able to enjoy a nice selection of cuisines.
I'm interested in the propensity for users to follow links. The mechanics of the world wide web is based on linking. Referring to Wallace's analogy of the world wide web as a magazine rack, web pages can be considered the magazines on the rack of links that gives the user access.
I often find myself on Wikipedia just browsing the articles. I finish reading one article and then I immediately go on to the next article by clicking on one of the links in the article or the “See Also” section. Before I know it, I go from an entry about Facebook to a page about Tamagotchi. From there, I go to an article about Game Boy. Why do some users continue to read linked articles? At what point does the user decide to get off a site like Wikipedia?
It's not just Wikipedia. I often click on links I receive in instant messages. However, in this case, I don't always have an idea of what I am about to view. For example, if I was linked to http://www.cornell.edu/academics/calendar/, I can ascertain that this will be a calendar, probably related to academics. However, if I am linked to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcXLE-wvVBw, I can only deduce that it is probably a video. I find myself clicking on the latter link as often as I click on the former one. Why would I almost blindly follow a link? Outside of the net, if someone was given an arbitrary address, like 1152 Danby Rd, would they make their way there? Internet providers caution users against going to links from strangers. Yet, some users continue to click without thinking, while others actually heed these warnings. What accounts for the difference?
2 comments:
I too am guilty of blindly following links of links to more links, partly because of curiosity and partly because of convenience. If a friend wants to show me a clip, it’s easier for them to show me through the internet versus me going to their place to see it. It’s true that outside the internet realm, people are less likely to follow some random address like 1152 Danby Rd because it takes far more effort to find this address than to click on a website. I do notice that I follow almost any link from friends and blogs, but when it comes to emails from strangers, I tend to be more skeptical.
(I love that youtube clip!)
You make a great point in that we often tend to click on links almost as a reflex when they seem like they might be interesting. We often tend to crave the instant gratification of getting what we want at exactly the point at which we want it – a part of the ADD-inducing trait that the Internet is becoming well-known for. Online content companies know all about our surfing patterns and try to exploit this reaction by tantalizing the viewer with exciting headlines (that are often more thrilling than the actual content) and then bombarding you with ads and often forcing you to click “Continue to Page…” before you actually arrive at your destination at which point you sometimes must battle a scrolling advertisement that won’t get out of your way until you click the tiny “x” in the top right corner or you otherwise must look very hard to find the article or video in the sea of ads on the page. Unfortunately, email spammers often make their living off of this inclination to click on any link that tickles our interest, but I believe that everyone eventually learns when to trust a link and when to avoid one. Anyway, I enjoyed your blog post – I thought it was well-written and caused me to realize how much this actually happens while using the Internet.
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