Naturally we’d like everyone to read all of our stories all the way through.

But what encourages readers to keep on engaging, hang in there until the end?

A fascinating study by Jonah Berger, Wendy Mae and David Schweider has unearthed that not all emotion is created equal when it comes to encouraging extended online reading. (Find the article here, the third article down under research headed ‘What leads to longer reads? Psychological drivers of reading online content”)

They delved into what it is about certain articles which encourages people to keep reading.

The three (plus undoubtedly a host of undergraduate students) combined natural language processing of a unique dataset of over 825,000 page-reading sessions from over 35,000 articles.

Their experiment examined how the words used (textual features) shape continued engagement.

Results suggest emotion shapes engagement.

But not all emotion increases reading.

Content that invokes anger and anxiety encourages further reading.

Content which encourages sadness discourages it.

Textual features that should increase processing ease (e.g. concreteness and familiar words) also increase engagement.

The meaty 20 page document makes an implication that “even controlling for what an article is about (i.e., its topic or topics), how that topic is discussed plays an important role in whether people continue reading,” they write.

“This provides a hopeful note for organizations trying to attract attention and engagement for less ‘engaging’ topics.

“While the topic itself may not engender continued reading, writing about it in a way that generates uncertain emotions and processing ease should deepen engagement.

“Writing style can compensate for topic.” (My emphasis).

Do you have a ‘less engaging’ subject you’d like both clarity and reading encouragement around? Give Punchline a call.