What Makes People Click? The Psychology Behind Online Curiosity 

Have you ever found yourself aimlessly browsing online, clicking on sites you hadn’t planned to visit? What compels us to click? These are the kinds of questions that experts have been examining for decades now. In Europe, the vast majority of people own smartphones, and Germany has the highest smartphone usage per capita. It is estimated that by 2030, 89% of people in Europe will have a smartphone and 80% will have a 5G connection. 

With that many people using smartphones day in and day out, there are countless trends and online habits related to what we click on. Let’s explore what drives all those clicks – and the psychology behind them. The research may surprise you.

Emotional Triggers Are Incredibly Hard to Resist

A wide range of factors contribute to why people click, but emotional triggers often sit near the top. Emotional responses are unique to each person. Just because you may respond emotionally to a site doesn’t mean the next person will respond that way too. 

Emotional responses that can be triggered include a sense of happiness, excitement, anticipation, fear, and even disbelief. Don’t just assume that the reason people click is for positive emotional responses. Often the negative ones can be just as powerful. 

Experts Work to Perfect Headline Phrasing

The psychology behind clicking is something that experts understand well. That’s why they focus heavily on crafting effective headlines and taglines. It’s common for a company to hire a marketing or advertising team to create content for the website. The copy relies on target market research and data to ensure the messaging is successful. In other words, you have been targeted by that particular website and your engagement with it is a direct result of how well the targeting worked.  

The Sense of Curiosity Is Strong

The expression “curiosity killed the cat” is perfect for how many people engage with the internet. No matter what the logical side of your brain may be telling you, your curiosity is likely stronger. You simply cannot say no to it; you need to see or check things out for yourself. If you see a website, ad, or content that has you raising an eyebrow, chances are you’ll click on it without a second thought.

Entertainment: One of the Top Reasons We Click

Boredom is something everyone experiences from time to time. Some people experience it more frequently than others. The thing is, when you’re feeling bored, you don’t necessarily have the energy to do something about it. Quick, casual entertainment options can be the perfect solution, especially when they’re highly accessible. The internet can certainly be a permanent cure for boredom. 

You can be entertained by streaming videos or music, reading, chatting on social networks, and playing games. Your connected device is your portal to unlimited entertainment options. And because people tend to get bored and lose interest quickly, you can quickly move on to the next source of entertainment. Ad nauseam.

People Click Quickly When There’s a Chance of Reward 

Entertainment is the perfect segue into the next reason that people click on websites and online content: reward. If there is a chance you may be rewarded for being on a particular website, the urge to visit it can become irresistible. 

Online activities such as casinos are great examples of this in action. The Mega Moolah slot by Microgaming, for example, leverages curiosity and massive jackpots to hook players who know there’s a chance they could strike the jackpot or get a smaller instant reward. As a result, it’s hard to resist the desire to play. 

Websites Leverage FOMO to Keep You Clicking

The term FOMO has been used for more than two decades. Originally introduced in 2004, it was meant to describe how people felt and reacted to content on social networks. For those unfamiliar with FOMO, it stands for “fear of missing out.” People felt that if they weren’t online checking their social network platforms, they may miss out on something big. This sense of FOMO can be so strong it causes people to go to great lengths to ensure they are online. Research on FOMO has shown it can become a compulsion that some people find incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to fight.

Despite the fact that FOMO can be physically and mentally unhealthy, it can still drive you to click on content. Even if you realise there’s no need to be online browsing, reading, and conversing with others, you can’t allow yourself to miss out.

Websites Typically Employ Various Tips and Techniques

So much of the psychology behind clicking on websites is personal. That’s why so many different tactics and techniques are used. An emotional response may trigger one person, whereas the next person responds more to rewards. Typically, a highly successful website will combine a range of tactics to attract their target market. 

The next time you find yourself mindlessly browsing and clicking on sites, you may want to think about how hard that site worked to convince you that your clicking was spontaneous – when in fact it was carefully engineered behind the scenes.