🎣 Why Your Brain Is More Tempted by Clickbait Than That Book You Bought

How short-lived urges hijack your curiosity and steer you away from your real interests

I often find myself drawn toward clickbait headlines even when I know the content of the article will be utterly useless to me. Their success depends not on providing high value to a reader, but rather on creating an urge for an answer, even if the information itself is asinine. It could merely be “Check out this new barista dress code at Starbucks!” or “Here’s which sock 80% of people put on first!”, and yet I’ll develop an overwhelming urge to click the link and find out.

We live in an age of information overload. There’s more knowledge available at our fingertips than ever before—but that doesn’t mean we’re consuming the knowledge we most value. You may genuinely want to learn about black hole physics or the history of democracy, yet somehow sensational headlines and TikTok binges are more appealing to our immediate attention.

A new study proposes a novel explanation for this paradox: not all curiosity is created equal. In fact, the researchers argue that curiosity is governed by two competing forces—an idea that can help us understand why we often make short-sighted information choices.

🎭 The two forces that shape curiosity

In a new 2025 study published in Cognition, researchers introduced a new framework called CURI—Curiosity from Urge and Interest—and tested its predictions across several experiments with a total of over 700 participants. Their core argument is simple:

• Interest is the higher-level cognitive form of curiosity that reflects your long-term goals and personal values; or as the researchers put it, your “stable epistemic concerns”.

• Urge is the more heated, fleeting drive to know something exciting, specific, or sensational—often driven by emotional triggers or missing pieces in our imagination; or as the researchers put it, your “relatively short-lived epistemic wants”

These two dimensions operate on different timelines. Urge spikes quickly and fades just as fast. Interest lingers and sustains. This means your curiosity in the moment (e.g. “Which celebrity just got divorced?”) may look very different from your curiosity when you plan what to read or learn next week (e.g. “What caused the collapse of the Roman Empire?”).

⏱️ The experiments: How time flips our preferences

Participants were repeatedly shown pairs of questions—one designed to provoke high urge/low interest (e.g. “What is the color of the White House’s toilet paper?”) and another designed to reflect high interest/low urge (e.g. “What were the top scientific breakthroughs of last year?”). Each time, participants had to choose their preferred question between the two in order to receive the answer.

The researchers then tested how preferences changed depending on whether people expected to see the answer immediately or after a delay.

• Experiment 1 showed a clear pattern: participants were more likely to choose Interest-driven questions when answers were delivered after a 1-week delay (60% overall preference) rather than right away (52% overall preference).

• Experiment 2 replicated this effect using curiosity ratings instead of choices, finding again that people had a stronger preference for high-interest questions when they knew answers would be delayed.

• Experiment 3 elevated the urge of interest-driven questions with subtle rewording (e.g., “You won’t believe who first described the human body”), creating an additional high urge/high interest condition. This boosted the appeal of the high interest questions only in the immediate condition—not when the answer was delayed.

Together, these results support the CURI model’s prediction: we’re prone to “epistemic preference reversals” over time, just like we might impulsively want candy now but choose healthier fruit for our future.

When content creators compete for attention, the high-urge, clickbait-style content often wins because they’re vying for immediate clicks. This can create a flood of attention-grabbing but low-satisfaction content that sidelines our deeper goals.

⭐️ Takeaway tips

#1. Delay your curiosity decisions

• When you come across tempting but trivial content, pause before clicking. Even brief moments of reflection before tapping on content can reduce the power of fleeting urges and help your deeper interests take the lead.

#2. Frame information as future consumption

• If you imagine reading or watching something later (rather than right now), you're more likely to make choices that reflect your long-term values rather than your short-term impulses. This mental shift can help steer you away from clickbait. Experiment with using online bookmarks and saved content as an “enjoy later” system rather than allowing immediate consumption to dictate your choices.

#3. Notice the difference between urge and interest

• Try to label your curiosity as either urge-driven (exciting but short-lived) or interest-driven (personally meaningful and lasting). Just being aware of the difference can help you resist the pull of shallow information and make choices your future self will thank you for.

“DECIDE, v.i. To succumb to the preponderance of one set of influences over another set.”

~ Ambrose Bierce

If you enjoyed this post, please hit the ♡ “like” button below