Saturday, February 13, 2010
Why You Share
A team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania spent a
good six months studying The New York Times list of most-e-mailed
articles, hoping to figure out what articles get shared, and why. And here’s what they essentially found:
People preferred e-mailing articles with positive rather than negative themes, and they liked to send long articles on intellectually challenging topics… Perhaps most of all, readers wanted to share articles that inspired awe, an emotion that the researchers investigated after noticing how many science articles made the list.
This goes a long way toward explaining why 3.4 million people have watched The Known Universe since mid December. And, as Bill Rankin
rightly suggested to me, it says something good about online culture,
and what makes Open Culture work as a site. Each day, we try to give
you a little awe and challenge. And for our next post: 10,000 Galaxies in 3D.
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