Buzzfeed: Fast and Slow thinking!

An article on Contently.com mentioned how Buzzfeed is harnessing both fast and slow thinking to increase traffic to its site and thus views to its ads.

To understand why this makes complete sense, it helps to know the difference between fast and slow thinking. Slow Thinking happens when users read more complicated stories — for example, from The Economist or The New Yorker. They savor the content and get involved with the story. They develop opinions on the topic at hand. Fast Thinking happens when you are skimming a newsfeed and looking at multiple headlines to get a gist of the general articles available and determine whether to invest "slow thinking" into it. 

For Buzzfeed to invest in content that promoted "Slow Thinking" makes complete sense, as they could only do the listicle articles so many times before people started to get tired of reading them. People need a mix of content that can fulfill their desire for instant entertainment, as well as their need to get further immersed in a topic they feel passionately about and want to understand  inside out.

I saw this happening quite clearly to me within the last few weeks with regards to the coverage on Gaza. I would initially start with skimming my newsfeed and seeing some general headlines such as "deathcount in Gaza rises," "Israel expanding ground attack," "3rd day of firing," among many other stories of beauty trends and hollywood gossip. However, the skimming has made me pay close attention to the Gaza situation, and when a Buzzfeed article highlighting US support for Israel would come up, I would angrily - and hungrily - open the article up, eagerly awaiting whether I will vehemently disagree or wholeheartedly agree with the author. Thus, the content that promotes fast thinking leads to 1) an exhaustion with skimming over time and 2) a desire for slow thinking, and hence complex content.

By capturing both sides of this, Buzz-feed has indeed won over the internet. As Contently states, "BuzzFeed’s greatest triumph, and most undervalued asset, comes from owning return reader engagement by keeping both the Fast and Slow Thinking parts of our brains happy."