Made you look!

You're not lonely. In fact, the title of this week'due south cavalcade is in the top 3 most reported spam subject lines, according to AOL.

Now, according to Bloomberg Business Week, there are approximately 93 billion spam emails sent every day. Just think of all that brainpower being used to find the catchiest headlines that will lure cynical scanners into clicking open unrecognized email. I'm not a fan of spam, but every bit much equally I despise it, I'm intrigued past the fine art of headline writing. I am endlessly seeking to empathise how one headline tin can grab the attention of millions, while another barely registers. I'd venture to say that a similar phenomenon is at play, whether it is a spam headline, a magazine byline, or a good caption for a cosmetic foam. Information technology perchance has little to do with the hope, because after all, nearly are aware that tantalizing headlines are unremarkably far juicier than the actual text, or production, or whatever information technology is that'due south being pushed or promoted.

And yet, we proceed falling for those sensational headlines. "Gwyneth Goes Topless" leads to a photograph of Gwyneth Paltrow in stockings, with her breasts well covered by her easily. "Tom Cruise Reveals Information technology All!" turns out to exist an commodity about the thespian's next movie. "Lady Gaga Finally Comes Out" is but Lady Gaga talking about her support for Japanese earthquake victims. Nosotros click on the links, we turn the pages, we buy the magazines, and regularly seek out the story behind the headlines. Furthermore, we are rarely perturbed by the fact that they almost never evangelize. On some level, we've even come to expect that.

Neuroscience might shed some low-cal on what really goes on in our brains equally nosotros willingly head down the catchy headline path. The nearly likely explanation might be our fearfulness of being left out, of not belonging. A short while agone I conducted a small experiment. Using fMRI, 16 volunteers' brains were scanned equally we exposed them to a range of seductive and attracting headlines. Some of the headlines were taken from ads, others from magazines, and, I'll come clean, some were taken straight from spam emails.

I was looking to sympathize what is and so seductive about these headlines, often knowing full well that they will not deliver anything close to what we are expecting. What we found, and this is perhaps not that surprising, is that we all really want to believe in things. And despite what we know, hope overrules our rational thought processes, tricking us into giving things all the same some other chance. This non just explains why nosotros open spam emails, and yeah, why we go along buying weekly gossip magazines, it as well explains why the billion-dollar corrective industry continues to thrive.

As 1 high-powered cosmetic executive once told me, women are driven by hope. Hope for a better beauty solution, hope for a revolutionary groundbreaking cream that volition take 10 years off their appearance. And even when they realize that information technology's probably not going to happen, nothing stops them rushing out the moment the next new cosmetic breakthrough hits the shelves. The cosmetic executive told me that this generally happens in three-calendar month cycles, and typically corrective brands tend to release their new products every iii months.

Another fascinating particular came to lite in our testing. 1 thing people accept in mutual is a fright of being lonely. The mind ponders the consequences of not opening an email or reading the latest gossip. Will that lead to being the only uninformed person in society? Volition they miss out on the next big thing? In case afterward case, we noticed activation in the fear center of our brain, the amygdale. At that place was a singled-out presence of fear–fear of not opening the email, not participating in the conversation, non buying into the cultural icons of our time. In curt, fear of being alone.

Are we really that simple? According to the neuroscientists, the answer is Yes. We just need wait at the list of top bailiwick lines for spam:

  • Banks Forced to Forgive Credit Card Debt – Meet if you authorize (7th on the list.)
  • Are you a UNUM Policy Holder? (tenth on the list.)
  • Fwd: Photos (8th on the list.)

In the larger scheme of things, this might as well go some way to explaining the astounding success of Facebook. I recently received an intriguing email from Facebook. It asked the question, "Desire to see what your friends were up to last night?" In other words, it could exist saying, "Martin, you were not invited. Loser. But check out what fun you lot missed!" It might also explain the long lines outside the latest night spot. Nosotros want to be wherever others want to be. You lot're in or yous're out. And we all want to be in.

Now, all this leads to some good and some bad news. First the proficient–you know y'all're not solitary. Billion-dollar industries stay alive considering there are many, many others who are also falling for every flim-flam in the headline book, from facial creams to Facebook. At present for the bad news–even though you know it's all a scam, yous are not likely to change your behavior–it's hard wired. And fifty-fifty though nosotros're all clever plenty to accept it, we're not clever plenty to learn from it. If you don't believe me, click on this link. Here'due south a $100 Starbucks gift card. All you need to practice is take a small survey on what you've but read.