Social Security Click-Bait Headlines

 

n otherwise reputable news sources In otherwise reputable news sources it’s not unusual to see headlines like this: “People Between the Ages of 60 and 70 Are Getting a Big Paycheck in January!” — or some such thing.

The headline catches your eye — you think to yourself, “Woohoo! I could use a boost in my otherwise meager social security payment…”

And, you click in, only to find the content is either simply highlighting the annual COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) — which you know is coming, already. Or itemizes a list of outlier qualifications for which maybe 1/10th of 1 percent of social security recipients might qualify. Certainly not you.

It’s click bait of the highest order, and not worth the effort of clicking in, reading the first few lines (and triggering all of the advertisements), and ultimately being disappointed.

To be sure, I’ve gotten caught by them, myself. But, over time I’ve come to realize the headlines for just what they are: click bait to get you to open the page so they can display a bunch of advertisements.

I’ve finally trained myself to ignore them.

Now, in fairness, sometimes articles can provide useful information. The 2023 COLA, for example, was a biggee: an 8.2% adjustment for inflation that, I think, caught the administration off guard (they recuperated: it was greatly reduced the following year, even though inflation was still high.) Articles were rampant on the subject, some of them actually providing useful information.

But, they were the exception that proves the rule. For the most part the articles are come-ons and illustrate a media that is being manipulated by hack content providers to catch your eye and push pages and pages of advertising on to your screen without providing any real information.

They don’t deserve your clicks. They certainly don’t deserve mine.