In the heyday of print journalism, there was a saying, "If it bleeds, it leads," summarizing the general wisdom in the news business that drama and violence attracted readers.
In 2024, at least 89 percent of adults get at least some of their news from the internet, according to the journal Nature, and that behavior seems to be increasing — and so do the dramatic headlines.
A March 2023 study in Nature Human Behavior found that negative and emotional words in viral news stories increased clicks.
According to the study, "Although positive words were slightly more prevalent than negative words, we found that negative words in news headlines increased consumption rates (and positive words decreased consumption rates). For a headline of average length, each additional negative word increased the click-through rate by 2.3 percent."
Most U.S. users spend less than five minutes per month on all the online new sites put together, the study finds. So competition is intense.
Negativity sells. Negative language increases sharing, the speed with which something goes viral, and how well users remember the story story.
Among the most frequent negative words: wrong, bad, awful, hate, war, worst, sick, fight, scary, hell.