10 Reasons why you should not read articles that start with a number

From ‘15 Powerful Reasons to Eat Bananas’ to ‘26 Dogs Hugging Their Humans’ — they are absolutely everywhere — these bite-sized photo-filled articles have only one purpose, and that is to take over your time completely. So here I am to insist that we should all stop reading them and here is why.

1. They are addictive

At some point someone must have realized that adding a number in the title of an article induces in humans involuntary clicking (or tapping). That is precisely why you find yourself immersed in ‘15 Creative Gift Ideas for Your Cat’ when you don’t have one, or why you clicked on ‘22 Words Hilariously Mispronounced by Toddlers’ while deep down knowing that it can only possibly be hilarious to the actual toddlers’ exhausted parents. That is also why I so cleverly added a number to the title of this article, and why you will click on another one when you finish reading it. Unless, of course, you really read this one and become convinced that this needs to stop!

2. They oversimplify complex reality

What exactly goes through our minds when we click on ‘17 Ways to Conceal your Cellulite’? It’s simple—we are drawn to the promise that finally this complex dimply issue that we have been dealing with can be resolved in 17 easy steps. The same applies to everything—in the current torrential overflow of information we look to grasp onto anything that offers a finite set of options for whatever it is that we seek to change or improve, be it our thighs or our relationships with our cats. In reality, we know things are never that simple (and yet we keep on clicking).

3. They count things that do not need to be counted

‘13 Ways to Keep Your Husband Happy’ is a classic example of how these articles pretend to make some kind of important link between quantitative information (numbers) and qualitative information (happiness of your husband). If you are anything like me, then the first thought that immediately pops up in your mind is ‘why not 14?’. The answer is simple, there is absolutely no such link, it is just that the author of the article ran out of things to say. At that point, they simply counted the number of bullet points they had come up with and proceeded to include that number in the title. Unless your name is Jules and you just finished the memoir about your 40-day trip around the world — what’s the point of counting what you are about to say?

4. They have distracting big headings

Based on my own ever-diminishing focus to actually read any article to the end, I am estimating that by the current heading #4 I have lost at least 60% of the readers. From here onward only the minority will proceed to read every painstakingly written line, while the rest have skipped ahead and will only read the massive headings. Just admit it, we all do it. If you are, however, one of my loyal readers and have not skipped ahead just yet, I would like to reward you with this link to 23 Attractive Men Who Have Probably Pooped In The Last 24 Hours.

5. They have too many images

I know that I have lost most of you with that link above, but I will continue for the sake of the 5 of you that passed the loyalty test. While I like a nice illustration here and there as much as the next woman, most of these so-called articles hardly have any text. Usually, they are packed with photos or, the more irritating ones, with small video clips of celebrities repeating an irrelevant phrase on an infinite loop. The effect it has on my brain (and therefore, I’ll safely assume on yours as well) is that I stop reading text altogether and after the fourth image, even stop looking at the images. And that is how ‘100 Greatest Paintings of All Time’ becomes an experience of scrolling down in approximately 14 .5 seconds.

6. They make everything into to-do lists

To say that I love lists would be adequate only if the words ‘adore’ and ‘admire’ were already taken. I have one for the books I want to read next (its length suggests I’ll live till the age of at least 249 or that I’ll have to find a way to continue with it in my next reincarnation). Obviously, I have one for my future imaginary babies’ names — because the fact that some babies get named Kyd or Blue Angel suggests to me that it is possible to really get stuck when naming your child. I even have a list for things that make me happy — it’s very useful on those days when I cannot possibly think of a single one. However, I am an ardent believer in people’s universal right to make their own lists, rather than them being forced onto us. For example, what alternatives does a reader have after reading ‘23 Boneless Chicken Recipes You Must Try Before You Die’?

7. They make things lose value and mystery

Yes, sometimes the value of something depends precisely on our inability to quantify it. There is something quite much more magical and mysterious and, therefore, more valuable about things that cannot be counted. I am not sure if “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…” would be among the most famous English love poems if it proceeded to actually count 1 through 10. Likewise, the endlessly starry night would probably not be quite as breathtaking if we knew the exact number of stars above us. Certainly, saying you love someone more than there are stars in the sky would not be quite the same — ‘when you say that, do you mean just one more than 1,989,243,353,085,395,094,343,464?’.

8. They make everything look like 10 commandments
‘16 Things Everyone Should Know About Water’ or, better yet, ‘12 Things Every New Parent Needs To Stop Doing Immediately’—I mean, just listen to this… Now, I will be the first one to admit that perhaps there are at best only 14 things I know about water and I would agree that there are a lot of things that new parents need to stop doing (like turning my Facebook wall into an hourly baby biography). Nonetheless, adding a number to these articles immediately transforms the tone into ‘I just descended down from the mountain and here is what you need to know’. Well, I don’t, thank you very much, and there are countless reasons why my knowledge is none of your business (not that anyone is counting).

9. They are disappointingly unmemorable

Here you are on the edge of the seat with your finger hard at work scrolling down the ‘11 Watermelon Tricks You Need to Try’, eager to learn something that will undeniably be impressive, when abruptly you get to the end of the list. And nothing happens. That’s the whole point — no matter how many amazing tips you intend to memorize while reading ‘13 Things to Do Before Global Warming Ruins Everything’, we can only be sure of one thing (and that is not global warming) — you will forget most of them by the time you reach the end of the list. The 3 remaining most “unforgettable” tips will be squeezed out of your memory storage when you proceed to click on ‘27 Things You Will be Unable to Unsee’ (here should be an infinite video loop of me rolling me eyes — seriously?).

10. They repeat or include unrelated items

Usually somewhere around item #9 or #34 most authors run out of things to say (it is definitely not the case with this article). No matter how many times they re-count, they still end up one point short from a nice round number like 10 or 35. What’s the solution? Easy — just repeat one of the earlier points. A slight rewording will ensure that no one will notice. An even easier alternative is to simply add a photo of a baby panda. Most readers will forget what the article was about once they see how cute she is while sneezing (seriously though, it’s absolutely adorable — click here if you haven’t seen it yet).